


i do adore

by PinkHydrangea



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2018-12-09 10:38:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11667429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkHydrangea/pseuds/PinkHydrangea
Summary: "We’re as different as can beI’ve noticed you’re remarkably relaxedAnd I’m overly uptightWe balance out each other nicely"A modern au tatizeke ficlatest chapter: zeke doesn't have fun times with social media and needs a beer





	1. like some cheesy romcom

**Author's Note:**

> tfw you can't go two days without pumping out more tatizeke content BECAUSE YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH THEIR GENTLE LOVE AND SWEET RELATIONSHIP
> 
> anyway yeah here's modern au tatizeke, if you go onto my tumblr blog, which is linked in my profile, i've got some background on it there, buried in my sov blogging / q&a tag, or you can just come into this with no prior information, idk either works, I JUST REALLY LOVE MODERN AUS AND I CANNOT BE STOPPED
> 
> (in addition, just so everyone knows, this fic contains mild inclusion of OCs from my fic _by the seashore_ just as like. a little treat for everyone who read that fic!!)

The woman at the counter is hands-down the most beautiful, radiant, angelic woman that Zeke has ever seen in his whole entire life. And he thinks he’s seen a lot of really beautiful women, so he has some pretty good room to compare. Lots of women are beautiful, but not all of them have soft, seafoam green hair, plump pink lips, and sweet gray eyes.

He didn’t know that when he agreed to pick up Captain Rudolf’s medication it would mean that he would get to lay eyes on such a beautiful girl. Going to a natural medicine and spice shop, Zeke assumed that he would walk in, pick up the prescription from a shriveled old man, and then walk out and go right back to the precinct. Easy, simple, forgettable.

Instead, Zeke had walked in, taken his coat off, and immediately been drawn to the sight of soft, wavy hair at the counter. The girl looks like a dream, sipping at a mug of tea while she pores over some magazine, and as the bell on the door rings, she looks up at him. Her smile is soft and genuine.

“Welcome,” she says. “Do you need help today, sir?”

Zeke jumps, immediately feeling like he’s burning, and shakes his head stupidly.

“No?” The woman tilts her head in an adorable fashion, then looks back to her magazine. Her mug is balanced between her fingertips and she hums. “Let me know if you wind up needing something, okay?”

Zeke doesn’t reply, instead keeping his head down while he wanders further into the shop. It’s a small place, filled with shelves that hold boxes and jars of all manner. It’s fragrant, almost overwhelmingly so, but it’s also pleasant. It’s an earthy, natural scent, and it keeps him company as he nervously eyes the counter and the woman.

He just has to go up, hand her a paper, ask to pick up an order for Albein Rudolf, and then leave. Simple, quick, easy.

But, he takes another lap around the store, working up some courage.

The girl gives him an odd look when he passes by the counter, not suspicious or annoyed, but genuinely amused. “Are you okay? You’ve, uh, been looking at that ground ginger for a long time.”

Zeke clears his throat and sets the jar back on the shelf. “I, er, have a great interest in it.”

“In ground ginger.”

He flushes and looks away. “Yes.”

“Well, alright. To each their own.” She sets her empty teacup to the side and folds her arms on the surface of the counter, leaning over to study him. “You sure you don’t need some help, honey?”

He drums his fingers against his leg, then sighs and approaches the counter. He rummages around the pocket of the coat hanging over his arm, trying to not be distracted by the cute song she hums while she waits. Finally, he finds the slip of paper Rudolf had given him and offers it to her.

“I’m here to pick up an order for an Albein Rudolf,” he says.

“Now, why didn’t you say so before?” She takes the slip, still humming her song, and turns to the wall of shelves and containers behind her.

Zeke is pretty sure that saying, “Because you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and I couldn’t articulate a single sentence” is probably a creepy answer to give someone he hasn’t even met, and laughs nervously.

The girl is dressed simply, in a long gray dress, with an old-fashioned white pinafore apron tied in a bow around her. With her soft hair and kind eyes, and her smooth skin and bright smile, she looks like she’s walked out of some old Grimm fairy tale. She has to stand on her tiptoes to reach the shelf that the prescription rests on, and he notices that she’s not wearing any shoes.

“Here we go!” She falls back on her feet, staring down at a jar in her hand, and she sets it on the counter. It’s filled with dried, crusty herbs, all dark red and brown and green. “One mix for bad neck pains. Instructions for taking it are written on a slip of paper underneath the lid.” She leans over the counter again, against her folded arms, blinking up at him from beneath her thick lashes. “Anything else, dearest?”

Zeke swallows, tries to not look at the hint of cleavage that her posture reveals, and grabs the jar. “N-no, thank you. Have a nice day.”

She waves as he leaves, her eyes shut in a kind smile. “Bye-bye!”

Holy hell, she’s _adorable._

Zeke forgets to even put his coat back on when he gets outside, is halfway down the street, and he has not stopped thinking about the beautiful girl. He doesn’t realize he’s turned on his heel and walked all the way back, until he’s standing right at the door of the shop, and he’s then exasperated with himself.

 _Really?_ he scolds himself. _We’re_ really _going to do this?_

He turns the doorknob with a deep sigh, shakes his head, and opens the door.

The sound of the bell echoes through the shop again. The girl is no longer behind the counter, but organizing something on the shelves in the middle of the store, and is obviously surprised to see him. She sets down a cleaning cloth and rubs her hands into her apron.

“Forget something?” she asks.

Zeke stares at her, blinking, and is silent as he tries to figure out what he should even say. He realizes after a short moment that his stare is making her uncomfortable, so he tries to relax his posture. “I, um, was wondering if I could, uh, ask if you were the owner of this establishment.”

The woman stares, a little perplexed, then smiles. She picks her cloth back up and continues polishing. “I’m a co-owner, kinda. My friend and I run this place together. He does most of the behind-the-scenes work, and I do most of the selling.” She frowns suddenly, appearing concerned. “Why? Is there something the matter?”

He throws up the hand that’s not firmly wrapped around the jar. “Oh, no! I was just curious. You don’t see many natural medicine stores or spice shops nowadays. It’s, well, interesting.” He’s silent for another moment, staring at the floor. “Could I ask your name?”

The woman regards him with a sweet smile and replies with, “Tatiana Niyazova.”

“Niyazova. Miss Niyazova.” He clears his throat and holds out his hand. “Ezekiel Holt. I’m a sergeant at the local police precinct.”

Tatiana hums as she takes his hand. Her hand is warm and soft, though her fingertips are a little calloused. “A police sergeant? I knew you probably had some big, important job when I first saw you. You look like the type, you know?”

He smiles sheepishly. “I get that a lot. Anyway, I’m sorry for coming back and bothering you.”

She waves a hand. “Oh, it’s fine. Most people just come in here, grab something, and then leave. It kinda gets a little bit lonely. I’m always happy to talk to someone.”

“I see.” Zeke regards the jar in his hand, then runs his other through his hair. “I, ah, will be seeing you around then.”

“I hope so,” she responds. Her smile never falters, and Zeke has a hard time looking away from the soft pink color of her lips, the cute roundness they have, and has to turn his head before he starts fantasizing what such pretty lips would feel like against his own. “Please have a good day, alright?”

“Y-yes, you as well.” He turns on his heel, hurries out of the store, and immediately buries his face in his free hand when he’s out of sight of the building.

“You’re a piece of work, Ezekiel,” he mutters to himself. “A real piece of work.”

* * *

Tatiana has to take a moment to catch her breath when the bell stops ringing, when the handsome man is out of sight of the shop. She falls into a crouch, her cleaning and polishing forgotten, and buries her face in her hands.

“Why me?” she mutters.

Her heart had stopped in her chest when he had walked in, like she was in some after-school romcom that she and the other girls in the church would watch together. That they would _make fun_ _of._ She’d always laughed at the overdone, dramatic moment when the heroine first saw the hero, and now here she is, her heart all aflutter at an absolute stranger asking for her name.

How could her heart _not_ flutter, though? He’d walked in, looking all cool and mature with his nice clothes, his coat thrown under his arm, checking his watch as though he was late for something. He’d looked at her for a brief moment, fixing her under those brown eyes, and her heart had melted. She’d almost been unable to greet him. She'd nearly choked on her drink.

Tatiana can’t even get him out of her mind now: Tall, strict and hard features, a strong jawline. Soft golden hair that had fallen just so perfectly in his face, appearing even brighter when framing his dark eyes. And, even underneath that nice button-up shirt, it hadn’t been hard to tell that he was built like a wall.

“Oh no,” she mutters to herself, shaking her head. “No no no no.”

“Tatiana?” Her friend comes out of the backroom suddenly, looking over the shelf down at her hunched figure. “Are you okay? Why are you sitting there and acting like an idiot?”

Her head snaps up to him, and she frantically tries to explain the situation. “A really handsome man came in here and asked for my name!”

He’s silent for a long moment. “Well, did he buy any-damn-thing, or did he just come in to be creepy?”

“He wasn’t creepy!” she defends as she gets to her feet. “His hair looked really soft, and he was super nice, and _yes,_ he bought something.”

Her childhood friend regards her for a moment longer, his expression still, then he sighs. “Okay.”

He goes back into the backroom without another word, and Tatiana tries to stop the giddy, embarrassing feeling in her gut while she keeps polishing the shelves.

She wants him to come back in soon.


	2. buy my silence- for $800 a month, i will stop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Delthea thinks she's the world's greatest matchmaker and Zeke wants Mathilda to shoot him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HHHHHHH more modern au bc i HAVE NO SELF-CONTROL!!! anyways, i'd suggest reading my tatizeke fic, by the seashore, or at least chapter 9 of it, because the friend who owns the medicine shop w/ Tatiana and shows up a couple times in the story is an oc from that story BECAUSE ECHOES DIDN'T GIVE TATIANA ANY FRIENDS OUTSIDE OF ZEKE SO I HAD TO LITERALLY MAKE ONE UP!!! im slightly bitter let Tatiana have canon friendships in the game wtf
> 
> ALSO the title for this fic was inspired by [this cover](https://soundcloud.com/juliette-th-r-samelie-nassau-cab/i-do-adore) of the song "I Do Adore," you should give it a listen!! it's super pretty and soothing to listen to!!!
> 
> EDIT: i rewrote this chapter after coming to the conclusion a couple of months ago that Zeke and Clive wouldn't like each other..... or at least that Zeke wouldn't get along with Clive at all so Clive had to go, whoops

Berkut narrows his eyes at Zeke. Zeke glares back.

“What?” he asks.

The detective holds up a paper. “You filed this wrong.”

Zeke takes the report, staring at it, and then looks up at Berkut. “So I did. Please forgive me.”

“This is the fifth time you’ve done that in the last week,” he says, scowling. “I hate to ask this, but are you fine?”

In truth, Zeke is not that fine, because he cannot stop thinking about the beautiful girl at the medicine shop. He cannot get her fluffy hair out of his mind, or the color of pink her lips were, or the sound of her name.

Tatiana.

“I’ve been a mite distracted.” He gets up, taking the report and a few others with him. “I’ll go file this and these others properly now. Forgive me for the inconvenience.”

“What could you possibly be distracted by?” Berkut asks, and he walks alongside him. “I’ve never seen you distracted in the entire time we’ve worked together. Does this have anything to do with you asking my uncle five times a day if he needs a prescription picked up?”

“No,” Zeke lies, and then scrambles for a new topic. “How are your wedding preparations?”

“They’re going smoothly.” Berkut seems all too happy to talk about his wedding, and carries on gladly. “We’re arranging our honeymoon now, and Rinea will be trying on wedding dresses as soon as she can find the time.”

“Will you go with her?”

“She says I can’t,” Berkut scoffs, and then sighs. “I wish she had some friends to take with her, though, but she’s so introverted. I fear she’ll be going alone, or with just her mother.”

“I see. I’m sorry to hear that.”

They arrive at the file room, and Zeke flips through a few cabinets’ contents before he finds the proper one.  He slips the papers in, gives Berkut a pointed look when he finds him scrutinizing his every movement carefully, and they leave. The precinct is busy that day, and they have to nudge past a few people.

“Zeke.”

At the front desk is Mathilda, who gives him a friendly smile before passing a clipboard back to the secretary at the desk. Berkut sighs and walks off on his own, leaving the two of them together.

“Mathilda. What are you doing here?” Zeke asks.

Mathilda straightens out the lapels of her coat. “I was just here to pick up some files from an old case that hasn't been scanned into the system yet. A detective needs them for her current case, and I didn’t want her to have to go through the trouble.”

“How considerate of you.”

Mathilda smiles and then digs into her pocket, pulling out her phone and checking the time. “I’ve got some spare time. Would you like to grab something to drink? There’s a good cafe across the street, isn’t there?”

Zeke glances over Mathilda's shoulder to his desk, checking on how much work he has, and then says, “Alright.” He pauses a moment, hesitates, and then asks, “Could I ask you for some advice while we sit?”

She lifts a brow and follows Zeke back to his desk while he gets his coat. “Advice?”

“Well, you've had more recent romantic relationships, and-”

“Hold on, are you going to ask me for romance advice?” Mathilda appears delighted. “Did you meet someone? Are you dating already? How long has this been going on?”

Zeke flushes and waves a hand. “No, no, I mean, I’ve met her, but-” He sighs as they walk towards the door. “I met her. And that’s about it. I was hoping you could give me some pointers and suggestions? It's been so long since I last… Put myself out there.”

“Yes, I’d love to!”

They cross the street to the cafe, and when they enter, it’s bustling during the lunchtime rush. Zeke’s head starts to hurt from the noise already, and he rubs at the back of his neck while they stand in line.

“What’s this girl’s name?” Mathilda asks. They inch forward as the line shortens. “Do you have it?”

“Tatiana Niyazova,” he says. “And-”

They get to the front of the counter before he can say anything else, and order their drinks. Mathilda keeps shooting him looks, smiling, practically bursting with curiosity, and just standing next to her is exhausting Zeke. He wonders how he’s going to bumble through a conversation, wonders if he should have asked Berkut for advice, then figures that asking someone more like Mathilda is his best bet.

A moment passes from where they’re handed their drinks to when they hear a voice calling for them.

“Mathilda, Ezekiel. What a coincidence.” Luthier is sitting at a table, a book in his hand, and he gives a friendly wave to the two of them and urges them closer.

“Luthier. What are you doing here?” Mathilda asks. “Do you mind if we sit?”

He gestures at the table, inviting, and shuts his book. “This is where I meet Delthea on her way home from school. She should be here any time. Feel free to stay, if you don't mind an encounter.”

“I like Delthea,” Zeke says, and he takes a seat. “Nice girl.”

Luthier sighs and pushes up his glasses. “Well, you aren't her guardian. Anyways.” He crosses his legs and leans back in the chair. “What are you two doing? On a break?”

Mathilda stirs her coffee around, swirling in the foam. “That we are. Ezekiel has some very interesting information, you see, and we came to talk. He wants my advice.”

“Don't make a big deal,” Zeke warns.

“What's this information?” Luthier asks. “I can try to be of help if it's a proble-!”

He's tackled from behind suddenly, knocking the air out of him for a moment, and then an annoyed groan escapes him as giddy laughter fills the air.

“Did I scare you, Lu?” Delthea puts a hand on her hip, and smacks her brother’s back with the other. “You're so fragile!”

“Young lady,” Luthier says scoldingly. He straightens up, adjusts his glasses, and glares. “We’re in a public place. And in the company of Mathilda and Ezekiel.”

Delthea turns her gaze to them, her smile brightening. “Hey! Wow, did you guys really _choose_ to sit with my brother?”

Mathilda laughs, amiable as ever. “We like him very much, Delthea.”

She immediately frowns. “Really? Cool cops like you wanna sit with my weird nerd brother? You're, like, awesome detectives, and he's just some forensics intern. Laaaaame.”

“Oh, shush,” Luthier scolds.

She puts her fists on her hips, indignant, and crosses the table to Zeke and Mathilda's side. “Buy my silence, if you're so desperate for it.” She turns to them with sparkling eyes. “You guys are _made_ out of money. Eight-hundred bucks a month, and not another peep out of me.”

“Hush!” her brother scolds, and he blushes when Mathilda and Zeke laugh. “Don't you two encourage this behavior!”

Zeke grabs his wallet and opens it, and Delthea claps her hands. “How about ten dollars instead of eight hundred?” He hands the bill out to her. “Go buy something to eat, okay?”

She takes the bill with enthusiasm, then shoots Luthier a sour look. “Zeke’s my favorite now, loser. I am going to go buy something good!”

Luthier sighs and hangs his head as she scampers off. “Why do you encourage her? Do you like my pain, Ezekiel?”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Zeke says. “I know she works hard at school. She deserves a treat.”

Luthier purses his lips and rests his face in a hand. “Well, I guess the occasional spoil won’t hurt her. Lord knows I can’t afford to treat her…”

“If you ever need some money to help pay for anything, I'm happy to help,” Mathilda reminds. “You’re a friend, after all, and you work hard to raise Delthea.”

“I hate to take your money,” Luthier mumbles, and then he switches the topic. “Anyways, this information, Ezekiel?”

Delthea comes back a moment later, humming as she sidles up between her brother and Mathilda. The drink in front of her is some sort of sparkling cream soda, topped with a dollop of thick cream and a cherry, and she stirs it all in.

“What information?” she asks. “Is it okay if I listen?”

“It’s nothing important,” Zeke assures, and then sighs. He looks to Mathilda as he speaks. “I met this girl while running an errand for Captain Rudolf, and-”

Delthea jumps into the conversation, her eyes bright and the cherry stem hanging from her mouth. “Zeke has a crush on a girl?”

“I made her acquaintance,” he says, and his ears burn. “It’s nothing to make a big deal of, Delthea.”

“Don’t interrupt him while he’s talking, please,” Luthier says, and she sits back down with a mumbled, “Sorry.”

“It was about a week ago,” Zeke continues, and he groans as he buries his face in his hands. “I haven’t seen her since. I made such a fool of myself when we met.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Mathilda assures.

“I did. I walked around her shop for a solid five minutes, looking like an idiot, before I finally walked up to the counter. And I told her I was interested in ground ginger. _Ginger_.”

“Embarrassing,” Delthea says, and she winces as Luthier gives her a slight smack on the back of her head. “B-but if it were me, I’d think that was kinda cute! Yeah, cute.”

Zeke lowers his hands and takes a drink of his coffee. “And then, after I left the store, I went rushing back and stared at her for a good twenty seconds before asking her her name. I must have made her so uncomfortable.”

“Was she pretty?” Luthier asks.

“Gorgeous,” Zeke mumbles. “I’ve never been so instantly taken with a woman in my life! She had this soft-looking hair, and these big eyes, and-”

* * *

“He was so handsome!” Tatiana says for the umpteenth time that week.

“Huh,” her friend mumbles, and he ducks his face into his scarf as a sharp autumn breeze rustles past them. He’s tapping away at his phone, and holds up a picture of a celebrity. “More handsome than this guy?”

Tatiana crosses her arms. “Much more handsome than that, August.”

“Mm.” He taps a little more, then shows her another picture, this time of a movie star he knows that she is fond of. “More handsome than him?”

Her answer is still the same, and he lifts a brow when she says so.

“You’ve been bumbling around the shop all week because you can’t stop thinking about this guy.” He pockets his phone. “You still owe me fifty bucks for that jar of chamomile you dropped.”

Tatiana winces. “I know.”

“Pay me back when you have the spare change, alright?”

“I will. Money is just tight this month,” she mutters, and she sighs as they walk up to the cafe. “As it always is.”

“If you ever need an advance on your paychecks, you can let me know,” August tells her.

“I know.”

He sighs and holds open the door for her, and the sounds of people bustling and chatting fill the air. The warm cinnamon smell of the cafe relaxes her, and she sighs as she steps in. She pulls off her scarf, pulls the hem of her shirt down, and waits for August to join her.

“It’s busy this afternoon,” she says.

“Yup.” He pulls out his phone again and taps at it, then shows her a picture of another very handsome man. “Okay, was your guy better looking than _this_ guy?”

“Yes,” she insists. “My answer will be the same, no matter what picture you show me.”

They shuffle forward in the short line, and he pockets his phone. “Right, right. I’m pretty sure you’re just exaggerating, though. You like doing that.”

Tatiana huffs and crosses her arms. “I am not. He was the most handsome man I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”

“More handsome than me?” he asks.

She sticks out her tongue, and he elbows her.

“What was so handsome about him?” he asks. The person in line in front of them leaves suddenly, and they move forward.

Tatiana rubs the back of her neck, thinking upon her encounter. “Mmm, his eyes were really dark, and they were really pretty. His hair was such a lovely color, and he had this really nice jawline. And his nose had this really cute bump, and-”

They get to the counter, and she abruptly stops talking as she puts in her order—“Tea with lemonade, please!”—and then hums while August digs around his coat pocket for his wallet.

“Dark eyes, pretty hair, strong jaw,” he repeats, and then he shoots a look across the cafe before turning back to the barista to give him his order. “Like that dude givin’ you eyes over there?”

“'Giving me eyes?' What on earth are you-?”

Tatiana turns, and her stomach sinks as she finds Ezekiel Holt staring at her.

* * *

Delthea interrupts Zeke’s description of Tatiana to point her straw towards the entrance of the cafe. “Like that girl over there?”

“Like that-?” Zeke turns his head, and his heart skips a beat as he indeed sees her standing at the counter. “Oh.”

Mathilda sets down her coffee. “Is that her?”

He stares a little longer, at the soft wavy hair, the sweet smile. Her clothes that day are a soft pink sweater and jeans, and instead of being barefoot, she wears a pair of heels that somehow make her seem even more elegant. He hears her clear voice drift over as she orders from the counter, and he picks up his mug.

“That is her,” he says stupidly. “That is her. Yes. That is very much her.”

Luthier subtly gives her a glance. “She is very pretty.”

“A knockout.” Delthea gives a low whistle. “Like, a total knockout. Wrow. Is she a model?”

“She owns a medicine shop,” he says without looking at Delthea. “But she is stunning, isn’t she?”

“You’re staring,” Mathilda warns. “She’s going to catch you-! Oh no.”

Tatiana turns suddenly with a jump, and Zeke tears his eyes away from her as their eye contact brushes. He turns in his chair hurriedly, and burns a little as Delthea snorts.

“I gave you ten dollars, Delthea,” he scolds under his breath. “Do not laugh at me.”

He pulls his hands away from his face and looks over again, and catches her giving him a slight glance of her own. She jumps as a voice calls out, “Tatiana, pick out a treat. I’m buying,” and his heart’s pounding quiets a little as a man touches her shoulder and gestures towards the pastry case. He’s handsome, with dark skin and messy black hair, and dark eyes that sweep over Zeke for half-a-moment before turning to Tatiana.

A boyfriend.

He sighs.

“That might not be her boyfriend,” Mathilda assures, as though she has read his mind. “Just go up and say hello. If she’s polite, she’ll introduce him, and then you’ll know.”

“I cannot just walk up and ‘say hello,’” Zeke mumbles.

The scrape of a chair against wooden floor makes him flinch, and he looks up as Delthea gets out of her seat. Her brow is scrunched, and she then snaps her fingers. “Hey, I recognize her now! Let me handle this.”

“You recognize her?” Luthier asks, and then holds out a hand as she skips away. “Young lady-!”

“I’m going to die now,” Zeke says to Mathilda. “Do you have your gun on you? Shoot me.”

* * *

“Miss Niyazova!”

A young girl comes rushing over to Tatiana, her smile bright and cheery, and she immediately recognizes her uniform as the local charter school’s. Her soft brown hair and snaggle tooth immediately  help Tatiana recognize her, and she smiles at her.

“Delthea?” she asks. “Hey, what a coincidence! How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she says. “What’re you doing here? I haven’t seen you in a few months. Why’d you stop coming by the school?”

Tatiana frowns. “I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy with my shop the past few months, I just haven’t had the time to volunteer at the library. Probably for the best, right? I knocked all those books over last time, remember?”

“No big deal,” Delthea says. “No one got mad at you. Not even the really cranky librarian did, promise. I mean, sure, knocking over thirty plus books startled everyone out of their minds, but-”

“I’m sorry!”

“You don’t have to worry about it,” Delthea says again. She steps back as Tatiana moves forward a little to get her drink from the barista, and August walks past behind them, looking for a seat. Delthea’s eyes follow him, and then she asks Tatiana, “Is that your boyfriend?”

A slight, unladylike snort escapes her, and then she clears her throat. “Him? Oh, no, he’s-” She pauses then, blinking, and frowns. “Are you here alone?”

Delthea shakes her head, then points across the cafe, right to where Ezekiel is sitting with a couple other men. “No. That nerdy looking guy over there with the glasses is my big brother. This is where we meet after school. And that’s Ezekiel and Mathilda.”

“You know that man?” Tatiana asks too quickly, and then she looks away. “I mean-”

“He’s cute, right?” Delthea asks with a wink. “He’s single. Really single. Like, I’ve known him for two years and he’s never, _ever_ been on a date. That kind of single. A very available bachelor.”

“Delthea,” she snaps, and then sighs. “Well, so long as you aren’t here alone.”

August calls out to her from the door, and she waves a hand at him, signalling, “I’ll be right there!” She gives Delthea a smile and rubs her head.

“I’ll see if I can’t volunteer for a shift soon,” she says. "Keep up with your studies, okay? I gotta go now.”

“Bye! You look really pretty today!” Delthea calls as Tatiana walks away, and she waves one more time before joining August by the door.

“Cafe’s packed. We gotta take it to-go.” The bell on the door rings as he opens it, and the second it shuts behind him, he goes, “Wow.”

“‘Wow?’” Tatiana repeats.

“That was the guy?” he asks. “You were starin’ at him enough that, you know, I feel it’s safe to assume.”

“It was him.” She wraps her hands around her tea, unable to get his dark eyes out of her mind. “That was definitely him.”

“You weren’t exaggerating,” August says as they walk down the street. He settles an arm over her shoulder, looking back towards the cafe. “He should be a model, goddamn.”

“I know!”

“Like, a model. Seriously. Holy hell, Tatiana, you gotta get that. Like, get _on_ that.”

“Hey!”

* * *

“You know her?” is all Zeke can say when Delthea comes back to the table.

She sits back down in her seat and takes a long sip of her soda before replying, “Yup! She’s a really nice girl that sometimes volunteers for library shifts at my charter school. I know her because she always gives me really good books to read. I didn’t recognize her for a minute, because she hasn’t been by the school in a few months, but that’s her.”

“A volunteer librarian,” Mathilda repeats, and she rests her cheek in a hand as she looks to Zeke. “That’s not adorable at all.”

Zeke gives her a long, hard look, and Mathilda's lips twitch in a suppressed laugh as she glances away.

“And I didn’t get a solid answer, but when I asked if that cute guy was her boyfriend, she laughed.” Delthea takes another sip of her soda and then sighs. “And I was very clear in communicating that you are _very_ single and _very_ available.”

“You what-? You know what? I want my ten dollars back,” Zeke tells her, and he holds out a beckoning hand. “You’re a terrible child.”

“I’m helping,” Delthea protests, holding her drink away from him. “I’m the ultimate matchmaker! He should be giving me _more_ money, right, Lu?”

Luthier has opened up a book and is studying it much too intensely. “I am not involved in this.”

“Mathilda, will you still shoot me?” Zeke asks.

Mathilda takes a long, long drink of her coffee and looks away. “I never agreed to that in the first place.”

“I hope I die,” Zeke mumbles, and he rubs at the bridge of his nose. “I truly, honestly hope that I die.”

“Don’t die, Zeke,” Delthea tells him. “Then you’ll never get a date with her.”

“I’m never going to get a date with her in the first place,” he mumbles. “Ohhhhh my god.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rip Zeke,,


	3. apples and cinnamon, green or gray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezekiel Holt cannot decide if Tatiana Niyazova's eyes are green or gray, and the thought plagues him at night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COUGHS sorry i haven't updated this i have too much tatizeke going on but i love my modaus so here we are, back at it again at krispy kreme,
> 
> (added some more backstory and construct to the fic with backstory and the like so.. ahaha, suffering is always necessary)

When Ezekiel dreams, it’s never of anything good.

It’s always of a woman arguing with him when he’s home, snapping and saying, “You _don’t_ care about me, it’s always about your position!” It’s always of her sleeping with her back turned to him and of a lonely, frustrated feeling. It’s always of sitting alone in a dark room, stripped down and strapped to a chair. It’s always of a snake-like man approaching him with a menacing grin, needles and hammers and hot pokers in hand. It’s always of burning, blinding pain, pain so hot and strong that he can’t handle it, pain that makes him scream, pain that makes him want to die like never before, pain that makes him _beg_ for death.

“Stop,” he can hear himself weeping. “Stop, stop, just kill me!”

And then, it’s always of waking up in a sterile white hospital room, the woman crying over him, and a chillingly empty feeling.

“I’m sorry, Camus,” is what she always says, and then she is gone.

And, when Ezekiel is done dreaming, he always wakes up, hot, sweaty, gasping for air. There is no one in his bed with him when he sits up, wheezing and choking, no comfort at all. He pants, clutching the quilt and struggling for breath. It’s completely dark in his room. The only sound is the ticking of his clock, typical nighttime murmurs of the city, and nothing else.

Zeke is alone, a little frightened, but he’s done this many times before. He flops back down on the pillows, taking deep, quivering breaths, and stares at the ceiling. He blocks out the panic and pain, shuts his eyes, but doesn’t go back to sleep.

He wishes he dreamt of nice things. He wishes that there was someone next to him to stroke the agony away.

* * *

“You again, Sergeant Holt?”

Anyone else, and Zeke might have taken insult to that kind of statement. But, when Tatiana Niyazova says it whenever he walks into her shop, it comes out so genuine. She turns from the shelves of herbs and spices that she is organizing, looks at him, and smiles so brightly. Beautiful, she’s always beautiful, barefoot like she walked out of a fairy tale, hair soft and well-maintained, and her clothes always some fashionable mixture of a skirt and fluffy cardigan as the weather grows colder.

Today, she looks at him over a shelf, and she’s clearly standing on her tiptoes to see over it. Her bright eyes—gray or green, he can’t decide on their color—regard him curiously, and without him even saying anything, she moves to the counter. Occasionally, when he visits the shop, he sees that friend of hers milling around in the back, but he’s not there today. It’s just her and no one else but Zeke.

“Me again,” he replies evenly. “How are you today, Miss Niyazova?”

Tatiana hums as she crouches out of sight. The sound of jars bumping and envelopes shifting starts as she looks for something. “You know, you’ve come in here enough over the past couple of months that I think you can stop calling me ‘Miss Niyazova,’ Sargeant Holt.”

Calling her by her name? So casually? He almost blushes at the thought of it and admits, “I feel like that would be rude of me.”

Her head pops up, and she peers at him with a quirked brow before going back to her rummaging. “You’re old-fashioned, aren’t you, Sargeant?”

“You can just call me Ezekiel,” he assures. “Some acquaintances call me Zeke, also.”

She laughs. “You want me to call you by your name, but you can’t say mine? Tsk tsk.”

“Yes, well, the difference here is that-” Zeke bites his tongue, because there’s really no difference, and if he wants her to use his name, he’ll have to use hers at some point.

“Aha!” Tatiana pops up again, this time all the way, and has an envelope in her hand. “Another order for Captain Rudolf, I see. Nothing for yourself? No ground ginger?”

Zeke furrows his brow. “Ground ginger?”

An amused smile quirks her lips. “You told me when we first met that you had a great interest in it. Was that a lie?”

He flushes and recoils. “Oh, uh- Well-”

Tatiana laughs, waves her hand, and starts ringing up the order. “Let’s see here. One envelope of an immunity mix… That’ll be about fourteen dollars, Sargeant Holt.”

She’s teasing him, and she does it so easily, but not in a way that he could possibly find annoying. If this were someone like, say, Python, Zeke has no doubt that he would be scolding them right this very second. There’s no desire to rebuke Tatiana, however, or to try and come back with something equally witty. He just likes hearing the sound of her voice, no matter how she’s using it.

(He’s ashamed to admit that that, especially in the past couple of weeks, he’s come to wonder what her voice might sound like if she were in his bed with him, and he feels filthy for just the vaguest thought of it.)

He pulls his wallet from his coat pocket, finds the money that Rudolf gave him, and hands it over. Their fingers brush, just barely, as she takes it. It sends his stomach into flips and turns. He pushes the feeling away, takes the change back, and also takes the envelope. Tatiana smiles at him, like she always does, waves goodbye, and he goes on his way. 

* * *

“You always come back here with that dazed expression on your face,” Rudolf says.

Zeke hands over the envelope. “I don’t know what you mean, Captain.”

Rudolf gives him an amused look before opening the packet. The pungent smell of medicinal herbs wafts into the air; earthy and bitter, but not unpleasant. “Rumor has it that you have a crush.”

A blush spreads over his cheeks. His heartbeat skips a little. He feels like a lovestruck teenager for a moment, and then pushes the feeling down and sets his face in a scowl. “A crush, sir? I’m nearly 30; don’t talk like I’m a child.”

“You’re infatuated?” Rudolf suggests, then chuckles. “I see that you don’t deny it.”

“W-well.” He clears his throat and adjusts his coat, slung over his arm. “I’m, uh-”

“Bad at expressing your feelings,” Rudolf says. “Who is this girl? I’ve never seen you take interest in anyone. Your last girlfriend was… what, six years ago?”

“About,” he admits. “And the young lady is nobody you need to concern yourself with.”

Rudolf looks down at the envelope, then back up at him. “It’s the girl working at the spice shop, isn’t it?”

Zeke jams his tongue into his cheek and looks at the ground. He doesn’t say anything, but his silence is more damning than anything.

“I’ve met her once or twice, before I started asking you to pick up my orders. Are we talking about the cute little girl with the soft green hair? She co-owns the place, correct?”

“Tatiana Niyazova,” Zeke says instantly. “If you need particulars, Captain, then yes. I find myself admittedly fond of her.”

Rudolf sets the envelope aside, slips on his reading glasses, and starts typing on his computer. “Mm. I knew something was different about you the very first day I asked you to go get my order. You walked back here, head in the clouds, and just sat at your desk all day. Typical signs of puppy love.”

Zeke clenches a fist. “I’m not-!”

“You haven’t asked her out?” he carries on. “You’re handsome and rich to boot. What are you afraid of?”

“Nothing, I’m-”

“I keep hoping you’ll ask her out,” Rudolf muses. “Why do you think I keep asking you to go pick up my things from that shop?”

Dumbfounded, Zeke merely stares. “I, er, hadn’t paid it much mind, honestly.”

Rudolf stops typing and lets out a bellowing laugh. “You’re one of the smartest men I know, Ezekiel, and yet you’re dense as a plank of wood when it comes to emotions.”

Zeke knows that. It’s why his last girlfriend left him, and to this day, he still cannot blame her. 

* * *

For the first time in what feels like years, Ezekiel has a good dream, amazingly enough. It’s vague, and he cannot remember it well, but he does remember the smell of apples and cinnamon, the feel of soft skin, and eyes that might be either green or gray. He can’t decide.

* * *

_Ask her out, ask her out, ask her out._

“You should thank Captain Rudolf for me,” Tatiana comments as she rings him up this time. “I swear, he’s paying my rent with all he buys.”

“He, uh, enjoys your services,” Zeke comments vaguely. He’s too busy staring at the little dip of her sweater as she leans forward just a little; it shows off a small bit of skin and cleavage, and he should know better, but he can’t tear his eyes away from it until she looks over at him.

Tatiana frowns, and it stops his heart. However, she doesn’t say anything about him staring at that little strip of skin, instead saying, “You seem so far away today. Are you ill? Do you feel well?”

He shakes his head and pretends to rummage through his coat. The persistent thought of, “Ask her out,” keeps playing in his mind, a cacophony in his head that drowns out everything else. “I’m just fine, Miss Niyazova. Thank you for the worry.”

Tatiana’s frown disappears, but her face is still soft with concern. Instead of handing the small jar of whatever it is that Rudolf has ordered to him, she sets it aside. She gets on her toes, urges him down towards her, and he leans in immediately without any hesitation.

His heart nearly stops when she rests a cool, soft hand beneath his bangs and against his skin. Her pink lips are set in a pouty way as she studies him, and she looks like she’s in deep focus. She smells like cinnamon and apples when she’s this close, and her sweater is now definitely showing more than a smidge of cleavage. He tears his eyes away from it instantly to be polite, heating up under her hand.

“You are a little warm,” Tatiana muses. “Hmm. Maybe you’re working too hard.”

Her lips look so soft and kissable all the time, but especially up close. Soft, round, painted a peachy pink; he wants to know if they taste as sweet as peaches as well.

(Zeke finds himself wondering about her lips. He wonders that if they’re as kissable as they look; would they feel nice against his?)

Tatiana leans back and puts her hands on her hips. “You sure you’re fine?”

He awkwardly rubs the back of his neck. “Just fine, Miss Niyazova.”

He notices that she winces a little when he says “Miss Niyazova;” but, perhaps that was his imagination, because she immediately shoots right into, “Sorry to invade your personal space, Sergeant.”

“It’s fine,” Zeke stupidly replies, taking the jar she offers him. “You, um, have a good day, alright?”

“You too.”

Tatiana smiles, waves, like she always does, and he’s gone. The late autumn air calms him down some, but he still feels overheated.

* * *

“No luck today either?” Rudolf asks as Zeke thrusts the jar towards him.

“Do you even use this medicine?” he shoots back, exasperated and frustrated. “Or are you just pointlessly ordering things and using me as your gofer in hopes that I’ll magically ask this girl out?”

Rudolf shrugs and goes back to his office.

Zeke can’t focus on his paperwork. He keeps thinking about how Tatiana’s eyes are neither gray nor green, but both.

* * *

Tatiana rings up his order today with a twist. When he starts pulling the money out of his wallet, she leans forward on the counter, envelope between two of her fingers, and a cheeky smile on her face.

“I’ll make you a deal, Sergeant Holt,” she says.

She’s cute. Too cute for him to not play along. He puts his hands on the counter and leans slightly towards her, asking, “What is this deal, Miss Niyazova?”

“Well, if you call me Tatiana, I’ll give you a discount,” Tatiana tells him. She still looks sly, but also perhaps a little abashed. “How about it?”

For a moment, Zeke wonders if (hopes that) she is flirting with him, then decides, no. She’s just friendly. Friendly, but he cannot smile back, because he feels frozen stiff. She’s looking up at him with those big eyes, those soft lips, those fingers teasing the envelope between them. He feels a little embarrassed to look at her so closely, knowing that his thoughts last night were occupied with her presence.

“T-” He chokes on the very first sound of her name, clears his throat, and tries again. “Tati...ana.”

Her eyes go from shy to bright as she sets the envelope down. “Yes! That was-”

He puts the money down on the counter, mumbles a, “Thank you, Miss Niyazova,” takes the envelope, and leaves.

* * *

Ezekiel’s dreams have been more pleasant than anything lately. Sometimes there’s still glimpses of pain, but mostly, they’re just nice. More than nice, actually. They’re of soft, round lips pushed to the center of his throat, soft fingers spread on his chest, and pretty eyes staring up at him. They’re pleasant and soft sorts of dreams, and he feels relaxed when he has them. Peaceful, even.

He likes them. He likes sleeping a little more now.

* * *

When Tatiana dreams, she honestly never remembers what she dreams about. She’s bad at holding onto that kind of stuff, she knows that. She wakes up with no recollection of what she dreamed of, why she dreamed of it, or what kind of feeling it left her with. It doesn’t really matter. She doesn’t think about it. She’s got more important things to worry about, like if she’s gonna be able to buy groceries this week.

(Sometimes, though, Tatiana has a dream about a girl, prone in the middle of the road, unmoving even while she screams her name. Those, she supposes, are more nightmares than anything. Memories.)

In recent weeks, however, since Ezekiel Holt started coming into her shop on the regular, it’s been embarrassingly different. He comes in so frequently, so nice and kind every time, and always so handsome. Well-groomed and finely dressed, a little bit of an awkward and flustered air around him that just makes him so adorably, endearingly charming.

Tatiana wonders if she’s too forward with him, though, because today, as soon as she tried flirting, he’d left so suddenly. She had wanted to hear him say her name so badly, and so she had gotten a little coy. She feels bad about it now, because he’d turned red so fast, snatched the medicine and paid, and then booked it out the door.

“You think I pressed too much?” she asks August. “D-do you think he’ll come back? What if I scared him off?”

August doesn’t look up from his work. “I don’t think a little flirting from a cute girl is enough to scare off a slab of man like that.”

Tatiana still worries, though. She worries that if Ezekiel Holt stops coming into her store, she’ll have less to dream about. Less fuel for those nice illusions she has in the depths of the night that make her so happy and eager to go to work. She worries, worries, worries. She doesn’t want to go back to having no dreams when the ones she’s been having have been so peaceful and relaxing.

So, when he comes back a few days later, right on schedule, she’s deliriously happy. She doesn’t try to bring up or apologize for her flirtation, because he doesn’t bring it up either, and Tatiana Niyazova has always known better than to press her awful luck. She’s polite this time, the perfect picture of a nice shopgirl entertaining her customer. Respectfully distant, but she desperately wants to talk to him familiarly.

Ask him out, ask him out, ask him out, ask him out-

He looks nice. Tall and broad-chested and sweet. Tatiana has never really liked that blonde-hair-white-guy look before, but he’s different. His eyes are a lovely brown, like dark amber, instead of some cookie-cutter shade of blue that she sees on all the male models in magazines. His jaw is strong and straight, but not overly pronounced in an annoying way. He looks strong and handsome, but also has a softness to the curve of his face and the shape of his eyes that just makes him look _better._ There’s an almost anxious air about him that lets her know he isn’t flouncing or using his looks to get what he wants.

She’s in deep. She barely knows anything about him and she wants to kiss him. Hard. She’s in _real_ deep.

Ezekiel makes polite small talk back, even giving her a _smile,_ and leaves. Tatiana has to still her racing heart and go stand by the shop’s fan because she feels so embarrassedly hot. He has a nice smile. A little wobbly, like moving his lips upwards is hard, but soft and kind. A very slight tilt of his lips, nothing more. But it’s so cute, and she thinks about it until another customer comes in and she has to compose herself.

Tatiana has another good dream that night, but it makes her regret not opening her stupid mouth and asking him out on a date.


	4. tomorrow will be the same as today

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the lifestyle differences of a broke 20-year-old and a rich 29-year-old (and the similarities as well)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not any tatizeke interaction in this chapter.... i just wanted to highlight the lifestyle differences because THEY COULD NOT LIVE IN MORE DIFFERENT WAYS it's cute.... i love them

Tatiana’s schedule is always constant. She wakes up at 7:30AM to her alarm on her phone, turns the alarm off, and then hefts the blankets further over her head. Later, she wakes up again at 7:45AM to another alarm, turns it off, goes back to sleep. And then, she wakes up at 8AM, turns the alarm off, wakes up at 8:05AM, then at 8:10AM, and _then_ she gets up for good, but she’s not too happy about it.

Her apartment is barely anything more than a single room. The rent is $450 a month, not including utilities. A little pricey for just one room, but she doesn’t share it with anybody, and it’s in a good part of town and in a good location. It’s got everything she needs: A tiny bathroom, a little kitchen, a bed that folds out of the wall, and space for her sewing desk and craft supplies. The view out the window sure isn’t anything special. It just overlooks the shopping district of the city. Nothing fancy.

The apartment is small and cramped, but it’s everything she needs. Tatiana Niyazova has never been a girl for luxury, so she’s fine with having to pull her bed out of a wall most nights, and she’s fine with the small amount of counter space in her kitchen. She’s fine with bumping her head against the wall when she turns over in her sleep because her bed is too close to the wall.

This morning, she stretches as she gets out of bed after turning off the umpteenth alarm set on her phone. She yawns and scratches the back of her neck, looking out the window to the streets, blooming with colorful umbrellas like a garden of flowers, and goes to the bathroom. She stands in front of the mirror, rifles through her drawer that is packed with makeup and other cosmetics, and finds a brush to yank the tangles out of her hair with. She washes her face, puts on moisturizer, and goes to the kitchen for breakfast.

Breakfast is normally two eggs with a couple strips of microwaveable bacon and a piece of toast. Sometimes, if she doesn’t get up at her 8:10 alarm, it’s a bowl of oatmeal or cereal before she runs out the door. She thinks when she cooks about all the things she could make if she’d just had a little more money for groceries this month, and the thought of pancakes or biscuits and gravy makes her stomach growl. Today, she feels adventurous, has some extra ingredients in her fridge, and so makes an omelette with cheese and ham instead of just scrambled eggs.

She watches a show on her phone while she eats breakfast at the counter, because her dining table (which is really just a coffee table that could fit one-and-a-half people at most) is full of pins and fabric from her current sewing project that she doesn’t want to clean up. She finishes eating, wipes the plates, puts them in the dishwasher, and then gets ready for work when it’s 8:40AM.

The weather outside is getting colder, so Tatiana wears thick leggings and a sweater dress. Back in the bathroom, she carefully applies her makeup, sifting through the countless products on the counter to find what she wants. Primer, foundation, powder, eyeshadow, mascara. She puts her hair up in a bun, a little miffed when curls here and there keep popping out of the confines, but doesn’t pay it much mind. She tops it all off with a soft pink lipstick, puts on a bit of perfume, and calls it good.

Before she leaves for work, she makes a lunch. Like with breakfast, she imagines all the things she could make if she wasn’t so damnably poor, and it keeps her content while she makes what she actually can. A sweet ham sandwich, a bag of carrots, a cup of yogurt, and today, she is also able to pack a couple of the cookies that the sweet old man living next door shared with her last night. It’s a good lunch, but it definitely isn’t a fresh salad or a sirloin. But, it feeds her, and she’s not going hungry, so she doesn’t complain.

Tatiana packs her lunch in her purse, slides a coat on, and grabs her umbrella from the closet. The elevator in her apartment complex is broken, so she goes down three flights of stairs, helping the old man living next door along his own way, and then remembers she forgot to lock her apartment and rushes back up.

The walk to work takes fifteen minutes, but she doesn’t mind it. Not even when it’s raining like it is. She passes by boutiques and cafés and other manners of stores. She windowshops as she walks to work, admires a dress in a window, and then pulls back her lips in a grimace when she sees the price tag attached to the item. One day, maybe, she tells herself, but she knows that’s a lie. Tatiana has never been a girl of wealth, and she’s likely not going to come into money any time soon. She’ll just keep telling herself “one day” until the day she dies, she supposes, and she’ll have to be content with that.

The shopping district is full of hustle and bustle, but it’s all comforting to her. She hears the beeping of a crosswalk signal, the rush of cars on the street passing her by, people chatting to one another as they pass, and the patter of rain on the pavement. It’s a swirl of color, too, in the form of shop signs and banners. It’s the kind of place Tatiana loves to walk through. She’s always much preferred the vibrant to the quiet—though quiet sometimes feels like a better option when it’s 3:26 in the morning and a group of drunk boys are stumbling out of the bar down the block from her apartment, shouting and singing and being generally obnoxious.

Gods, Tatiana doesn’t like those boys.

She gets to the shop at 9:30AM, a half-hour before it opens. She’s always the first one there to open it up. August comes in around noon to take care of the more business-y side of things, like ordering stock and figuring out bills. Tatiana’s main job is to keep the front of the shop in tip-top shape and to sit at the desk and look pretty. He jokes that it’s the sight of her from the window that makes people come into their shop.

Tatiana checks the items in the shop, makes sure they’re filled and presentable. She wipes down the windows, cleans the handle to the door, and sweeps the floor. She counts the money in the register, makes note of it on the shop’s checklist for the day, and then checks the orders. A little disappointed, she notes that there is no order for a Mr. Albein Rudolf today, which means no Ezekiel swinging by.

The shop sells more than natural medicine—in fact, Tatiana would say it sells more of other things. There are flowers for sale in the shop, spice blends and ingredients for regular cooking, etc. Natural medicine isn’t a particularly booming business, but they get by. They’ll never be the most popular shop on the block, but there is something about August and his skill for business that makes it work. They draw in all sorts of customers looking for different things, and Tatiana prides herself on her ability to smile, talk amicably about products, and make a good sale.

When it hits 10AM, she unlocks the door, flips the sign in the window to say OPEN, and takes her place at the counter. Fifteen minutes pass with her cheek in her hand, quietly listening to the slight ticking of the clock in the backroom, and then she figures it’s okay to break out her knitting. She has an order from her online shop for a scarf, and she’s brought the project to work with her. She sits there for a long time, clicking away at row after row, and then a customer comes in, buys a scoopful of spices for a dinner they’re making, and leaves.

Tatiana has finished quite a few rows on her knitting by the time August comes in, shaking his hair free of the rain. Briefly, she complains about him getting her perfectly clean floor wet, but it’s all teasing. He goes into the backroom to mix orders and do his responsible business owner stuff, and she sells a bouquet of flowers to a nervous high school girl, who has the look of someone about to confess their feelings. Tatiana feels sympathy for her, gives her a smile, and wishes she had half the guts than a sixteen-year-old has.

She wishes Ezekiel was coming in today. She wishes she could ask him out for coffee.

“How’s your rent looking this month?” August asks after a couple of hours have passed.

Tatiana finishes a row and puts down her knitting needles, figuring that now is as good a time as any for her sandwich. “Barely making it, as usual. I’m gonna probably have to skip a couple of dinners these next couple of weeks to save money.”

“That’s rough. Wish I could help out more, but I’m not exactly rolling in dough either this month.” He walks by the counter with a clipboard in hand. As he leans down to scrutinize a jar of spices, he says, “Is your hot friend comin’ in today?”

She opens the bag to her sandwich and blushes deeply. “Sergeant Holt? Oh, no. There isn’t an order for any Mr. Rudolf today, so I guess not. He only comes by to pick up orders.”

“Mm. Shame. You look like you could use some company.” August scrawls something on his clipboard. The thrum of the rain outside and the sound of his pen scratching on paper is nice white noise for her lunch break.

The rest of the work day passes by uneventfully. Tatiana sells a pretty good amount of stuff that day and feels pleased with herself when she packs up her knitting and takes her leave. She goes home, umbrella perched against her shoulder as she walks in the rain. It’s dark, even though it’s only around 6:30, and street lamps and car headlights light the way home. The shine of traffic lights, green and red reflecting on the slick black road, is an oddly pretty sight.

At home, Tatiana says hello to neighbors on her way up the stairs (the elevator is still broken, but the management company has put up a sign saying the repairman will be in tomorrow afternoon to fix it) and fumbles with her keys a little at her door. When she gets inside, she sighs deeply, leans back against the door, and kicks off her heels. They thunk against the cheap carpet dully, and her feet feel free as she stretches them out. She puts her purse on the kitchen counter, scoops up a t-shirt off the floor, and replaces her dress with it.

And then the day is over.

There’s really nothing else for her to do. Any friends she has are all busy with each other, or still at work, and it’s a weekday night besides. It’s seven in the evening, so she makes another sandwich for dinner, does some more knitting, a little more sewing, and reads a couple of recipes in her favorite cookbooks. She answers a couple of texts on her phone, doesn’t get replies. At 10PM, she takes a shower, climbs in bed, and piles the blankets on top of her to try and block out the chill so she doesn’t have to raise the temperature of the thermostat.

It’s still cold in the bed, all by herself. The wind outside is blowing hard enough that it howls as it passes the apartment building. Tatiana stares up at the ceiling, grimacing as the sudden sound of the couple living above her getting into bed together. It’s a problem that the rain outside, which has grown stronger, fixes easily. She closes her eyes.

Tomorrow will be the same as today. Tatiana cannot shake the feeling of loneliness her empty bed and tiny apartment bring her.

* * *

Zeke gets out of bed at 7AM, but he’s been awake since 4:23AM and just wasn’t able to go back to sleep. That’s how it normally is. Sleep a little, wake up from anxiety, stay awake staring at the ceiling, and get up about three hours later. He wakes up. Alone. His bed is large enough, plenty so, for another body, but it’s empty. Like always.

He rubs out a crick in his neck with a grimace as he sits up in bed. His arm is sore, and he rolls his shoulder in an attempt to work out the pain there. The early morning sunlight is streaming in through his window, but he doesn’t mind it. He’s been lying in bed watching the sun rise, after all. He’s wide awake and ready for the day.

There’s a scratching at his door, and it’s apparent that he’s not the only one ready for the day. Zeke swings his legs over the side of the bed, groans as he stretches, and shivers in the chilly morning air. His bare chest isn’t helping anything, so he grabs a sweater, folded neatly on top of a chair, and slides it on. He gets to the door, takes a deep breath, and opens it fast.

A furry blur rushes past the doorway, barking and scrambling around the bedroom. Zeke sighs as the dog slams into a wall in its excitement, pants and turns its direction, and then makes a mad lunge for the bed. The bed creaks under the dog’s weight. Zeke watches as the German Shepherd makes a few quick turns on the bed, panting madly, before it sets its forelegs down and wags its tail, clearly desperate for attention.

“You have too much energy in the morning, Ephraim,” he tells the dog. “I’m not playing right now, young man.”

Ephraim whacks his tail on the sheets and whines, but Zeke ignores him and goes to the bathroom. The dog follows him, sitting almost politely at the door and watching as he washes his face and opens the drawer with his shaving equipment. He feels almost scrutinized by the dog as he rubs the shaving cream on and carefully pulls the razor along his face. Ephraim’s eyes are intelligent and clear, and Zeke always feels like he’s being judged whenever he does anything.

“Stop looking at me like that.” He rubs his aftershave on his jaw, glaring down at the dog. “Give me a few minutes and then we’ll have breakfast.”

Ephraim once more wags his tail at the word, slapping it against the ground loud enough that he’s sure the neighbors can hear. He waits patiently with his tongue lolling out of his mouth while Zeke fixes his hair.

Breakfast for the dog is a cup of dry food and a cup of wet food. Ephraim follows him out of the bedroom right on his heels, eagerly watching as Zeke steps into the kitchen. He pulls the wet food out of the refrigerator, lets the dog give it a sniff, and puts it on the counter to get the dry food. He mixes them, grimacing and trying to stay balanced as Ephraim weaves his way between his legs and tries to squish into the space between Zeke’s legs and the counter he’s working at.

“Stop that,” he scolds. “You’re not exactly small, you know.”

Ephraim wags his tail and scoots between his legs. Zeke sighs, but reaches down to pat him between the ears and continues to rub him as he digs into his food.

Breakfast for Zeke is messily-made parfait with strawberries and blueberries. It’s not about to get any points for presentation, and it’s not the best tasting, but it’s food. He’s never been competent at cooking by any means, and even his most basic dishes come out tasting bland, but they’re edible. He’s had Jerome joke more than once about him needing “a woman around to do the cooking for you! That’s what they’re for, after all.”

Zeke stabs a strawberry, splitting it right down the middle with his spoon, and likes to pretend it’s Jerome’s head.

He puts on the radio while he eats. On the kitchen counter, he has an older model, something vintage from his own father, that still works just fine. A news station is on, repeating current events in a droning voice: Foreign affairs, social issues, groundbreaking musicians, interviews with all manner of experts. He listens quietly while he stirs his parfait, slightly straining to hear the show’s host speak over the sound of Ephraim loudly chomping down his breakfast. The dog finishes fast though, stretches a little, and then moves to beneath the table where he can flop down on Zeke’s feet.

He finishes breakfast and nudges his dog off of his feet carefully so he can go put his dishes in the sink. Ephraim stays flopped beneath the table, clearly enjoying the heat from the air vent nearby, and it gives Zeke room to load the dishwasher and wipe down the stone counters.

His penthouse is big, and sometimes, it feels a little lonely due to the size. His bedroom is large, large enough to easily fit a queen-sized bed, a TV, some furniture, and his wardrobe. For someone who doesn’t cook much at all, the kitchen is good-sized and has plenty of cabinet space. The living area is big enough for Ephraim to run around in, furnished with a coffee table, some couches and chairs, and some decorative pieces. He doesn’t use that area much for anything but lounging, though. He doesn’t really have guests over. Ephraim likes the sofas, though.

At 7:35AM, he goes and gets ready for work. He pulls a pair of trousers and a dress shirt out of his wardrobe, scrutinizes them for any creases or wrinkles—he simply can’t go out of the house with an imperfection in his outfit—and lays them on the bed as he looks for his shoulder holsters and a jacket. He finds them on the back of a chair and scoops them up, then starts the process of undressing.

Ephraim comes in while he’s sliding into his pants, yawning before climbing onto the bed and flopping down on it to snooze. Zeke carefully grabs his shirt and slides the edge of it from underneath his dog, then slips it over his shoulders and starts to button it up as he looks out the window. Below, a good fifteen stories down, are the city streets. Being a higher-end residential area, it’s not crawling with people just yet, but come 8AM, it will be full of people leaving their homes to go to work, and he’ll be among them.

He picks a tie out of his closet and slides it on, expert and deft fingers easily tying the knot. He slides on the shoulder holsters, secures them, and finds his satchel with all of his work papers. At 7:45AM, it looks like it’s getting a little cloudy and rainy as he prepares to leave, so he grabs a jacket and his umbrella from the closet by the door, grabs his car keys, and leaves after ensuring that Ephraim has clean water and a toy to tear to shreds if he gets too antsy.

Zeke has money. He has a lot of money. He comes from a rich family with nobody left, so he is, as Alm puts it, “loaded.” But he doesn’t like spending his money. He doesn’t like flourishes of wealth or unnecessary embellishments that mean nothing in the long run. He’d much rather have comfortable. His car, though, is an exception, and he allows it to be one excessive luxury. It’s not a sports car of anything, because he doesn’t need to be racing down the road, but it’s nice, and he likes to drive, so he convinces himself that a nice car is okay.

The drive to work is always fairly quiet at this point in the morning, and only ten minutes besides. The police precinct is right near the shopping district of the city, and by eight, it’s still rather quiet. When he gets off work around four or five, however, it’s bustling, always, and it’s a good thing he doesn’t have to sit in traffic to get home. By the end of the work day, he’s usually a little irritated or grumpy, depending on how annoying Jerome has been that day, or how a case has come along, and traffic really wouldn’t do any wonders for his mood.

He goes into work, says hello to the receptionists and administrators, and eyes the perps in the holding cell. Some are clearly hungover, likely arrested for drunk driving or disorderly conduct sometime during the night, and others look sober. The ones that are sober, Zeke knows, are usually there for fights or domestic violence, and he has the most fun with them in interrogations. They act tough, but as soon as he applies a little heat, they crack like eggshells under foot, just like they deserve.

The precinct is full of the sound of people typing away at reports, discussing cases, and the occasional escort of a perp into custody. The sound is loud, but not loud enough to make him anxious. He’s too used to the environment by now, but his first few months in the force were enough to make him squirm. Every criminal that yelled set him on edge, made his hand shake in the wake of his trauma. Now, it’s all white noise. If an angry perp wants to shout obscenities and make a fool of themselves, it’s none of Zeke’s business. It’s not about to stop him from writing his reports and looking at his files.

Rudolf greets him as he sits, poking his head out of his office, and then goes back to work. Berkut at the desk across from him greets him with an indifferent grunt, and Jerome at the desk across the way gives him a sneer. Zeke glares right back quietly, but only for a brief moment, and then gets to work with unpacking his papers and setting up his computer.

“They brought in that perp you’ve been looking for last night,” Berkut says suddenly without looking up.

Zeke blinks and puts his satchel down beneath his desk. “Oh? Really? In the holding cell?”

Wordlessly, Berkut points to where the cell is, and Zeke can see the skinny, pale, rodent-like man clear as day. He’s red in the face and clearly infuriated, and it makes Zeke feel smug. The man is wanted for groping women in the streets, which is, according to the books, a “petty crime,” but these are another type that he loves grilling the best. He hasn’t a lick of patience for entitled scumbags who like putting their hands where they don’t belong while on the subway.

“I’ll deal with him in a couple of hours. I’ll let him stew,” Zeke says, like he always does. He fills out paperwork and types up reports, helps rookie officers with their cases, and then he has someone escort the man to the interrogation room.

When he walks in, the man goes from puffing himself up and trying to look intimidating to shrinking in his seat. Zeke nearly always has this effect of instant intimidation, and it sure as hell makes his job easier. He follows his same routine: States the accused crime, patiently listens to the protests, and then puts evidence down on the table. He puts a little pressure on, tells one or two lies that make him sound more convincing than he thinks he actually is, and within thirty minutes, he has the rat sniveling for the lightest punishment possible.

But that’s not Zeke’s decision, no matter how he wishes he could dish out punishments for lowlife filth.

After that, it’s a briefing in the meeting room that he conducts. He hands out assignments and takes questions with Rudolf standing sagely behind him. He is patient and diligent, the way he is supposed to be, and senses the approval that Rudolf is radiating. He wraps up the meeting, but is distracted very slightly by the notion that Rudolf might send him on an errand to the spice shop. He’s hoping, almost, and is disappointed when the captain goes back to his office without a word.

No Tatiana Niyazova today, then, unless he stops by with no errand in mind, but he worries about if she would think that creepy or not.

He goes out to lunch, a more expensive restaurant down the road, and also gets something for dinner so he doesn’t have to scramble to put something barely-edible together. He passes the rest of the day by in relative silence; he doesn’t get any new cases, and he isn’t sent out to deal with any problems. Berkut is out shadowing a suspect, and he has peace from the sound of his computer keys clicking over and over while he types constantly, neverending. It’s just him typing in their space now, typing away at a report he’s revising, thinking almost too much about pink lips and soft skin.

He wants to see her.

When he gets off work a few hours later, he almost considers it. He gets down the steps of the building, looks down the street where he knows she is, a few blocks away, but decides against it. She likely doesn’t have time to be visited at work, and it’s not like he’s a friend besides. So, he unfurls his umbrella, goes to his car, and drives home in silence.  The sheen of traffic lights on the wet pavement mesmerizes him, and he’s back at his apartment building before he knows it.

He takes the elevator up, sighing as he shakes out his umbrella. He slides his key into the lock on his door easily, and already he hears the jingling of Ephraim’s collar and the sound of his heavy paws against the hardwood as he comes running. Slightly, slowly, carefully, he opens the door, smiling just a little when the dog immediately slams his snout into the crack, sniffing eagerly.

“Yes, yes, I’m home, what a joy.” Zeke nudges him back with his foot, opens the door a bit wider, and slides in. The penthouse doesn’t appear trashed, though there is a good deal of fluff on the floor and the tattered corpse of Ephraim’s latest toy. There is also stuffing stuck to his dog’s face, and he reaches down and plucks it away while the German Shepherd snaps his jaws at it irritatedly. “You certainly killed it. Good boy.”

It’s about six in the evening, and he lies in bed with his dog, rubbing between his ears, as he watches a documentary to pass the time. Ephraim’s tongue is lolling out, and it laps at his hand whenever it gets even slightly close enough to be licked. Zeke grimaces and shakes him away, scolding him a bit, but it does nothing to avert the constant affection the dog gives. He leans back, sighing, and smiles as Ephraim inches onto his chest to lick his cheeks.

“Naughty! Down, boy!”

When the documentary is over, it’s 7:30PM. He leaves Ephraim on the bed and steps into the bathroom to take a quick shower. He takes off his clothes, folds them nicely and sets them in the laundry hamper, and scrubs himself clean underneath the hot water. Steam curls up and drifts through the bathroom, fogging up the glass. He breathes in the hot air and rubs his face, trying once more to not think about eyes that are green and gray somehow at the same time.

He changes into sweats when he climbs out of the shower and dries himself off. Ephraim is waiting patiently by the door, his tail sweeping the ground, and lunges to all four of his feet eagerly when Zeke walks past him back into the kitchen. He feeds him a helping of dinner, the same meal from the morning, and has his own food from the restaurant he went to earlier.  The penthouse is quiet except for the sounds of Ephraim chomping down his food like it’s his last meal on Earth.

Zeke is ambivalent towards the silence.

Until 11PM, he reads a history book, lying on his side in his bed, a cheek in a hand as he flips through the pages. The storm outside is still going, wind howling, and he finds himself wondering what Tatiana is doing. Her shop is closed by this time; he wonders if she got home safely.

A little after 11, he turns off all the lights in the penthouse, checks to ensure that every entrance is locked and secured tightly, then checks again. Ephraim follows him around, yawning, and climbs back into bed with him when he goes back into the bedroom. Normally, Zeke makes him sleep on his bed in the living room, but he feels a little hollow enough today that he doesn’t mind the dog dozing with him. A dog is certainly the furthest thing from another human body and the intimacy that comes with one, but a dog is still man’s best friend, he supposes.

Ephraim snuggles up against him, puts his head down, and goes to sleep. Zeke stares at the ceiling for ten minutes, twenty minutes, forty minutes, and shuts his eyes. The sound of rain helps to lull him to a hopefully restful sleep. He’ll wake up again at four in the morning, he just knows it, and tomorrow will be the same as today. He’ll wake up and be lonely, burdened with the thought that nobody will ever sleep next to him ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, i had to give zeke a dog to replace his horse, YES OF COURSE IT HAD TO BE A GERMAN SHEPHERD


	5. oh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Has anyone ever had a not-awkward run-in with someone at the grocery store before? Zeke does not think so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer before you go in asd;flasj YES this is supposed to be kinda clumsy and awkward and clunky, somewhat to reflect the feeling of how awkward and painful it is when you run into someone you know-but-don't-really-know know at a store and you wanna die, i think this is the cringiest thing i've written in a long time bc they're both painfully _awkward_
> 
> ALSO wanted to clarify going forward that this modau doesn't take place in like, any very specific setting except it's Modern. i'm never going to drop like, "oh wow they're in New York City" or something, it's just an ambiguous city. because i am American though, when i write, a lot of things will likely be in American standards, such as education systems, currency, or, more prominently in the story here, drinking ages. ie. the legal drinking age in this Ambiguous Modern Setting is 21 rather than 18 like most other places. but yeah like, this isn't an American setting expect for things like the aforementioned topics because i am American myself
> 
> in addition, there are two chapters in this update, this one and the following chapter, just because i wrote them as one chapter, but i think the pacing is better if they're split up. enjoy!!

On Zeke’s day off, he gets up at seven in the morning, right on the dot, with Ephraim cuddled up by his side. Instead of waking up immediately to prepare for the day, however, he merely lounges in bed a bit. He picks up his phone from his bedside, opens up a news app, and scrolls through it for about an hour or so until Ephraim wakes up. His first order of business is to yawn, lick his chops, and then smack a paw against Zeke’s face, as if to say, “Human. Food. Now?”

“Ouch,” Zeke replies, still scrolling. Ephraim whacks him again and whines, and he recoils from the dog. “I get it, fine.”

He gets up, groaning as he stretches. His dog worms his way into his lap, his tongue lolling out, and tries to lick at his jaw. Zeke shakes him off and gets to his feet, followed by Ephraim on his heels. The moment he opens the door to the bedroom, the dog races out. While Zeke gets to the refrigerator, Ephraim scrambles around the living room, yanking up toys from random places, throwing them around with a frantic shake of his head before dropping them and taking another few laps around the room.

“Quiet down, you don’t want to bother the people downstairs,” he tells him. “Now, let’s see- Oh. Well.”

Ephraim stops dead in his tracks, looking to Zeke with a tilt to his head.

Zeke shuts the refrigerator and rubs his jaw, scratching slightly at the stubble. “You’re out of food. I must’ve forgotten to pick more up.”

A dismayed whine comes from the dog. He comes to Zeke in the kitchen, sits down in perfect form, and fidgets in place while he keeps whining and begging. He licks his lips, looks down to the food dish, and then whines again, long and drawn-out, as though this will help his human suddenly pull food out of thin air.

“Let me get some clothes on.” Zeke reaches down and pats the dog between his ears apologetically. “We can go down to the store, get you some more food, and get a walk in at the same time. Sound good?”

Ephraim beats his tail on the ground and barks.

Zeke puts on jeans, a dress shirt with no tie, boots, and a simple jacket. He washes his face and fixes his hair, but his jaw isn’t abhorrently scruffy, so he doesn’t shave. He picks up his wallet and keys, slides them in his pocket, and finds Ephraim’s leash sitting on the coffee table in the living room. His dog barks and wags his tail so ferociously that his entire body moves back and forth, and he can hardly sit still as Zeke tries to clip the leash onto him.

“If you calmed down, we could get going much faster,” Zeke explains.

The dog barks and tries to lick his face.

The day is chilly, but it’s at least sunny, and the air is still. Zeke takes a deep inhale of the air, crisp and clean, once they are outside, lets his shoulders sag a little, and starts to make his way down the street. His dog is always excited to go outside, given that he stays indoors most of the day, but his tendency to stop and try to smell everything is a little annoying. It’s not like Zeke has anything to do, though, so he lets him do what he wants within reason, lets the passing children who want to pet him do so, and then continues on his way.

“We should run a couple of other errands while we’re out,” he tells the dog. “What do you think?”

Ephraim shakes his fur out after a passing child rubs him, lets his tongue hang out, and that is his only reply. Zeke loves the dog to pieces, but he sometimes wishes he had a companion with opinions beyond which toy to chew up or how many rubs he deserves.

When they get to the grocery store, twenty minutes later, Zeke wraps Ephraim’s leash near the bike rack, in a place designated for waiting animals underneath a striped fabric awning, and firmly wags a finger at him. “Stay here. If anyone tries to take you by the leash, what do you do?”

Ephraim promptly sits, perks his ears up, and barks, his lips pulled back in a snarl that vanishes when Zeke pats him between the ears. He flops down on his side in the sun, tongue lolling out of his mouth, and soaks in the light and attention both as a passing child squeals at the sight of him.

Zeke has a list. He always does, when he goes shopping. It helps things get done easier and quicker, and helps him stay within budget as well. He just needs dog food, yogurt, fruit, some meat- Just things to get him through the week, and more importantly, things he actually knows how to cook. He pulls his phone out from his pocket and opens the Notes app, scrolling through it idly as he grabs a shopping basket.

The store is nicely designed, and at 8:30AM on a Wednesday morning, not awfully busy, which is just the environment in which he prefers to shop. Zeke will admit he gets fidgety when he goes anywhere and there are lots of people, chattering and being generally… loud. So, the slight quiet of the store is good, and sets him at ease as he walks through the aisles to try and remember where the pet section is.

And, the trip is uneventful, as he expected. He circles around the store, like he always does, after he finally remembers where to find what he’s looking for. He picks up a few cans of wet food for Ephraim, along with a new, colorful toy shaped like a blue penguin that squeaks when he squeezes it. He goes around, picks up some cups of yogurt, some granola, a bottle of spices for the meat he grabs at the butcher’s counter, and also grabs a can of beer to keep him company during the night.

The trip is uneventful, as one could expect, until he gets to the produce section.

Zeke is just looking at the blueberries and raspberries, trying to find a box he likes, and then he hears a small giggle. It’s from the aisle over, and normally, no sane person pays any attention to someone giggling in the grocery store. There’s something about it that is familiar, however, and thus, it catches his attention. He puts the box of blueberries down, picks up another one, and tries to figure out why the sound is recognizable.

And then, accompanied by the clicking of heels against the tile floor, he hears, “Oh, hey! Uh, Sergeant Holt!”

Zeke jumps and drops the plastic box, but catches it with his other hand a second later before it goes spilling everywhere. He straightens up and immediately puts a hand to his hair for no reason, and then swivels on his heel to find one Tatiana Niyazova.

“M-Miss Niyazova!” Fumbling, and cursing himself for being so… _weird_ all of a sudden, he puts the berries back. “Wh— You— Hello!”

“You don’t work today?” Tatiana tilts her head at him from her place next to the peaches. “It’s good to know you aren’t a workhorse all the time.”

Tatiana looks nice. She has on thick red leggings, ankle-high black boots, a knee-length black skirt, and a gauzy white button-up shirt. Her thick mass of hair is piled on the top of her head in a messy, seafoam-colored bun, with waves and curls sticking out here and there. She looks cute, and his heart skips a beat when he realizes her brass earrings are shaped like small teapots. Everything about her looks perfect, right down to the shade of her dark pink lipstick and swoop of her brown eyeliner, and he has to remember she asked him a question, and he needs to actually _reply_ instead of staring at her adorable fashion choices like some freakshow.

“N-no, I don’t work today.” Zeke nervously puts a hand on the stack of blueberry boxes and pats them. “As you can see, I’m uh, sh-shopping.”

 _Hey, Camus Ezekiel Holt, you’re almost thirty,_ he tells himself, _So what the_ fuck?

“As we all need to,” Tatiana responds evenly. “I’m not surprised you come shopping here. You know, at a nice place.”

“Uh-huh.”

She’s chattering incessantly as she sifts through soft pink peaches, and he realizes, with his amazing police sergeant skills, that there’s a flush on her face and stiffness to her stance that would suggest she’s _also_ nervous. Just knowing that she’s also flustered is enough to make him relax a little, even if he is disappointed that it’s probably _him_ making her antsy.

“I, uh, I have to go to the dime-a-dozen grocery store near my place most of the time,” Tatiana babbles a little. “I- I usually can’t afford to come here, but they were having a sale on peaches, and I’m making a pie for a friend, so I- You know.”

No, he- he doesn’t know. But he swallows and nods and goes back to picking out his own produce as she does the same. There’s an uncomfortable tension between them, and while taking a slight glance from the corner of his eye at her, he notices her phone gripped very tightly in her hand. It’s an older model, he notices, and her phone case is decorated with a painting of the sea.

_Phone. Phone. You could give her your phone number. Ask for her number._

Zeke opens his mouth, chokes on his words, and then turns back to his extremely-forced shopping. He reasons that asking for her number and giving his isn’t that odd; they’ve been acquainted for a little over two months now, even if 97% of their meetings have been in her workplace. And then, he scolds himself, reminding his urge that yes, that’s right, most of their meetings save for the weird, conversationless coffee shop encounter have been in her place of work, which does NOT mean that they’re friends, and she is not obligated to be nice to him outside of her shop.

But, she seems so friendly. She called out to him. She was the one that said hello. If she didn’t want to associate with him outside of her shop, it’s not like she would have done that. This reassures him, but then he remembers the man with her at the coffee shop, and he starts worrying again that that _is_ her boyfriend, and Delthea just had it all wrong— But what if she’s single and totally available and _would_ actually like it if he gave her his number, what if-

“Do you need help?”

Zeke blinks, snapped away from his Very Dramatic Inner Turmoil, and looks at her. Tatiana has moved closer, having obtained a bag of nice peaches to go with some apples in her shopping basket, and has a hand outstretched slightly towards him. When he cocks his head, she nods at the berries, an amused quirk to her lips.

“I think you’ve been going at those for two minutes. Do you know how to pick berries?”

Zeke flounders for something to say, looking from Tatiana to the berries, and then says, very stupidly he is certain, “Of course I'm an expert," and he picks up a random box to emphasize his point.

Tatiana gives him an amused look. "I think those are starting to mold on the bottom already. Are you sure...?"

He puts them back down immediately. “No, I'm not an expert."

Tatiana shifts on her feet, awkwardly turning her phone in her hand, and sort-of-proposes, "I could, uh- You know."

He scoots to the side with a mumbled thanks as Tatiana moves in front of the berries, and there is an unbearably awkward nineteen seconds (he counts the seconds exactly, desperately looking for some kind of reprieve from this agony) where they stand somewhat close together in silence as she goes through the produce for him. This is literally the most awkward encounter he’s ever had. Has anyone ever had a not-awkward run-in in a grocery store before? He thinks it might be impossible. And it's his fault, because he's such an idiot that he can't even do something mundane, like pick some goddamn fruit, in front of a cute girl.

God. God, he wants to crawl under a rock and die. He just wants to disappear. God, help him.

Zeke watches as she hovers over the selection for a while longer, and then as she picks up a small bin of blueberries rather than a box. Humming, she sifts through them, then offers the bin. “These are good. No mold, I promise."

“Thank you.” He takes it from her, careful to not let their fingers touch, and holds it awkwardly, utterly forgetting that he's carrying a shopping basket in his other hand. Numb, and still desperate to somehow both escape this interaction and prolong it, he asks, “And where did that valuable skill come from?"

“Picking fruit? I mean, I think most people know how to do it, but I'm from the countryside,” she tells him. “A super tiny town down south on the beach. There’s a lot of agriculture down there; the farmers let me pick stuff like berries for an hour or so per day during the summer to earn pocket money.”

“Oh,” he says again. “That sounds… quaint.”

He worries, very suddenly, that this sounds offensive to her, but she smiles instead. “Quaint’s the right word, I think."

Tatiana leans down and picks up her shopping basket, straightens her skirt, then smiles and waves. “I have to get home, but it was really nice to see you outside of the shop, Sergeant Holt.”

“Call me Ezekiel,” he offers. "Having someone call me by my rank outside of my workplace is odd."

Once more, she clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “Having someone call me 'Miss Niyazova' like we're in the early 1900s is really weird, too. I'll stick with 'Sergeant Holt' until you call me Tatiana.”

He flushes and looks away. “Oh,” he says, because “Oh” seems to be a focal part of his vocabulary today.

She slips her phone out of her skirt’s pocket before she steps away, and once more, he has a very convoluted inner argument with himself about whether or not to ask for her number. He tightens his grip on his own phone, thinks he has worked up the courage, and then-

Then loses it as quickly as he got it.

Why, he wonders, would Tatiana want to interact with him, much less date him? Why should he even try, when his last relationship crashed and burned so- so terribly? Zeke knows he isn’t relationship-material. He knows he’s not good at them, he’s not built for them, so why would he try to do this to Tatiana?

Why would she want him?

“Please get home safely, Miss Niyazova. It was good to see you today,” he tells her.

She smiles politely, nods, and leaves, making her way through the aisles until she is out of sight. Zeke watches her go as subtly as he can, and then goes and finishes his own shopping. He checks out, takes his bags, and struggles with the lingering regret. It’s not like that’s the last time he’ll ever see her, but he has a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Being social sounds nice, but he just- Just can never seem to manage any company besides that of a dog, or an old man that he happens to work for.

Ephraim is waiting outside for him, still flopped over on his side and soaking up the sun. His big brown eyes open when Zeke steps close, and immediately, he scrambles to all four of his feet and barks happily. His tail wags ferociously, and he starts to snuffle at the bag containing his food and new toy.

“Wait until we get home,” Zeke tells him. He takes a heaving sigh and unties Ephraim’s leash, wraps it around his hand, and lets him guide the way home. He thinks that, perhaps, he should have gotten more than one can of beer to keep him company for the evening, after that disaster.

* * *

Once a month, Tatiana goes over to a friend’s house for dinner. She knows him from her limited time at college, her senior by a few years who would always help her in her general courses, even after his graduation in her first semester. Tatiana is a lot of things, but she’s admittedly not the brightest when it comes to math and science, and the tutoring was always much appreciated. He got married right out of college to the guy he would never stop talking about, and his husband is nice.

When they all three manage to have a day off align, they do dinner together, and Tatiana always tries to bring something. She’s chosen to make an apple-peach pie for tonight, and went to the grocery store pretty early to get the ingredients for it. She always goes to the sales early to get the best pickings, even if she hates dragging herself out of her bed before nine on her days off.

But she hadn’t expected to see Ezekiel Holt there, and her stomach is still fluttering as she opens the door to her apartment. She’s been kicking herself the whole way home for acting like an idiot, just suddenly greeting him like that, and chattering like a fool about things he wouldn’t ever care about, and _then_ even doing something really really stupid like offering to pick berries for him. Which may be the dumbest thing she's ever done in her adult life.

God, she just wanted to crawl under a rock and die.

Tatiana slams the door shut behind her, drops her groceries on the floor next to her counter, and huffs as she stands in the middle of her apartment. Annoyed, she notes that she put her bed back into the wall that morning, so it’s not immediately available for her to dramatically throw herself upon. She paces the room in circles instead, stepping over her knitting projects and bundles of fabric and packing supplies for her orders, yanking her hair out of the bun all the while. Finally, she settles on confronting herself in a mirror hanging above her sewing desk, and she firmly points a finger at herself.

“You’re one heck of a moron,” she says to her reflection. Cupping her cheeks, she watches as her expression crumples into teary-eyed, pink-faced embarrassment. “I picked blueberries for him! Oh nooooooo!”

Tatiana abandons the mirror and stands in front of the wall with a dismayed huff, grabs the string sticking out of it, and pulls her bed out. She puts it down gently, so as not to disturb the old man next to her, and waits until she hears it hit the ground softly. And then, she throws herself on the bed face down, flopping around and beating the lumpy mattress with a fist.

“What was that?” she cries into the pillow. “Dumb idiot! Staring at him like a deer caught in headlights, _picking fruit for him,_ why? Why why why why why!?”

Tatiana groans, agonizingly, makes one more wailing sound into her bedding, and then rolls over and promptly hits her head against the wall. Weakly, she cries out and grabs the offended spot, but she’s used to it. She writhes in pain for only a moment, then rolls over to the other side, lies on her back as she throws one leg over the edge of the bed, and stares at the ugly cracks in the plaster ceiling. She traces them with her eyes as she takes a deep breath and calms her beating heart. She can vaguely hear the ticking of the old clock on the wall in the kitchen.

Why didn’t she give him her number?

She’d thought about it. Really, really thought about it, the second she’d seen him. She really had thought about just going over, saying something normal, like, “It’s really nice to see you today, I’d like it if we could see each other outside of my workplace more often, here’s my number.” She had been so close, clutching her phone firmly in her hand, making confident strides over, and then… then she had just crumpled. Crumpled, and then acted like an idiot.

Tatiana Niyazova is a 20-year-old college dropout who has to pull her lumpy bed out of the wall before she can even throw a fit on it. She’s not that bright. She barely scrapes by every month with pay from her proper job, and has to make her pocket money by selling a craft here and there online. She’s kinda chubby. She can barely buy groceries most weeks. She spends her evenings hunched over her sewing machine or watching Netflix.

She’s _boring._ She’s really, really boring and really, really poor. Why would a really handsome guy like Ezekiel Holt want her number? He’s probably pretty well-to-do, just based on his general bearing and style, and she wouldn’t ever want him to think she was making a grab at his money. She’s got nothing to offer him in return, unless he wants something like a hot meal or a chubby girlfriend whose thighs are mildly okay for napping on.

Tatiana sighs and opens her eyes towards the ceiling once more. She curls her fingers up, fingering the fabric of her shirt sleeve. She shifts her legs around, pulling the one onto the bed, and remembers a time when she _did_ have someone who liked all of those qualities about her. Someone from what felt like an eon ago, who always and unconditionally loved everything about her.

Her phone is lying on the bed next to her, thrown from her pocket during her brief fit. She turns onto her side and picks it up, squinting as it activates and casts its light on her. She has a text message from a few friends, including August, who is amusedly texting her a small story about a funny customer who came in last night.

Tatiana didn’t give Ezekiel her number, but maybe that was for the best. Maybe nowadays she’s a little too broken to be dating anymore.

She puts her phone down, takes in a breath, and falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise that they're going to stop being Really Weird with each other really soon because, I Can't Handle This Nonsense Either,


	6. this is a gays only event

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tatiana knows from personal experience that One Embarrassing Happenstance will not kill her, but she still wants to die

Tatiana’s pie is done, finished at around five in the afternoon, and made with calm and excellent care after she napped away her worries for a few hours. It looks nice, if Tatiana says so herself, baked in a nice tin, with a careful, woven lattice topping that is a perfect golden-brown. The scent of baked apples and peaches is filling her apartment, and the pie releases almost picturesque puffs of steam as she lets it cool while she gets ready.

Her destination is two-and-a-half hours away on foot, an hour on bike, but only about thirty minutes if she walks down to the station and catches the commuter train. From there, it’s only about a ten minute walk, and she’s lucky she has such a quick, direct route from her apartment to her friend’s home. She hates driving, after all, and even if she didn’t, there’s absolutely no way she could afford a properly-functioning car.

She hums through the bobby pins in her mouth as she pins up her hair, winding it into a coil before piling it on the upper part of her scalp. A few strands escape and bounce out, brushing against her shoulders. She reapplies her makeup and her lipstick, checks her outfit for creases, and back in the kitchen, packs up her pie in a container.

She takes her purse, a coat, and the pie. The door clicks as she locks it behind her, and she walks down the hall and hits the button to the elevator that is missing its maintenance sign, pleased when it dings and opens for the first time in weeks. The couple who lives above her are on their way downstairs, and she makes polite, idle chat with them until they hit the ground floor.

The commuter train arrives just as she scans her transit pass over the entrance gate. It opens for her, and she passes through just as the train releases a gaggle of people. Holding her container close, she squirms onto the train, and finds a seat on the upper level with a table she can rest her pie on. A minute passes while she gets settled and puts her headphones in to listen to a podcast, and then the train starts moving.

Tatiana rests one hand over her container and puts her chin in the other as she stares out the window at the passing urban scenery. She wonders, as they pass the nicer end of town and leave it in a blur, just where Ezekiel lives. It’s a very weird question to ask someone you barely know, so she anticipates she’ll never have that information, but she wonders. She looks up at an incoming high-rise apartment complex, a sleek glass and white-brick building, and wonders if he lives somewhere like that. An apartment, a house, a condo—surely anything but a worn-out studio apartment like hers.

The train zips out of the city and goes through a quiet stretch of country. It’s far from the fields and hills of her home down south, but it’s still a nice, quick reprieve from the bustling city. They pass a pasture of sheep and cows, a field of long grass, a stretch of wheat fields, before entering another city limit. The train stops at a few places, and Tatiana waits patiently until it stops in the middle of the city.

She exits the train with her things, wobbling as she steps out onto the platform, and looks left and right as she orients herself. She follows the crowd of exiting passengers as they leave the platform and makes her way down the street, out of the business center, and towards a neighborhood.

Her podcast keeps playing through her headphones as she walks. It’s a little colder in this city for whatever reason, so she stops to button up her coat before continuing along. The neighborhood is fairly nice, but as she understands, not really for big families. There are children here and there who make room for her on the sidewalk as she passes, but no large hordes. The houses are all unique rather than uniform; most people buy the land and build their own homes here, from what she has been told.

The house she stops at after a while is smaller, and very pretty. It’s gray brick with a fine, hand-carved door, and a pleasant garden in the front that is slowly withering as the growing seasons pass. Tatiana climbs the stairs to the porch, takes out her earbuds, and then knocks on the door.

Tatiana waits on the porch, humming and curling her fingers around the handle of the carrier in her hands, and waits. She looks up to the corner of the porch at a light that is flickering, on the brink of going out, and then straightens her shoulders and puts a smile on her face when she hears the sound of the doorknob turning.

The door opens, revealing a lovely man in jeans and a cardigan, purple hair flowing down to his shoulders, and he has the bright smile when he greets her. He opens the door wider for her and says, “Right on time.”

“Hi, Leon. Want me to take my shoes off?” she asks.

“If you don’t mind,” he says. “Have you been eating well?”

She smiles blithely. “Had to be a bit stingy with groceries this week. I’m pretty excited to be getting an actual meal.”

“We’ll have to give you some leftovers.” Leon rolls his eyes. “How many times have Valbar and I told you to come to us if you need help?”

Tatiana hands the carrier to him and sits on the edge of a chair to unlace her boots. “I don’t wanna be a bother. It’s not like I’m starving or living in squalor. I just had to eat sandwiches for dinner four times this week.”

“Well, that just sounds like college again, if you ask me, and God knows I’ve had enough of that.” He looks to the carrier she has given him. “What’s this?”

“Pie for dessert,” she explains. “Valbar said he liked my peach-and-apple pie, so I made a big one.”

“I think we have some ice cream to go with that,” he muses. “Take off your shoes, come on in. We got the table all set already, so you just relax.”

“Nothing I can do to help?” Tatiana asks. “Really, I’m the guest, so you should let me.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around,” Leon chides her. “You can help clean up after, if you’re so insistent.”

As Tatiana would anticipate any house Leon decorates is, his home is nice. It has bursts of color here and there, lovely flourishes that very much scream Leon, but there are also touches of Valbar in a lot of things, too. It’s spacious and homey, with some rustic, earthy brown and gold tones that compliment the colorful pops of table decorations and paintings well. The kitchen ahead of them is broad and spacious, and Tatiana thinks it must be really nice to have all of that counter space.

Valbar is in the kitchen, hanging up pans on a wall fixture while something sizzles on the stove. The scent of grilled meat greets Tatiana, and she spots a plate of steaks sitting on the counter next to a bowl of salad and a loaf of french bread.

“Oh, here already?” Valbar, as he always does, greets Tatiana with a big grin that makes her feel all warm and fuzzy. To her, Leon’s husband always looks like the stereotypical picture-perfect family man that one might find in a home décor magazine. He’s big and burly, the size and general shape of a bear, and has on corduroy trousers and a very rustic plaid button-up. Tatiana thinks, if he hugged her with his full strength, Valbar could easily snap her back. And after the stunt she pulled this morning, she kinda wants him to.

“She’s right on time, as always.” Leon picks up the salad and takes it to the table, which is set for three. She notes with interest that there is a bottle of wine waiting. “Even in college at those god awful morning classes, always punctual.”

“We all have to have our good qualities,” Tatiana says. She scoops up the carrier from where Leon placed it and shows it to Valbar. “I made you a pie.”

“Well, ain’t that thoughtful!” He pats her hair affectionately, one large hand nearly engulfing her head. “Can’t wait to dig in. Let’s eat some real food first though, huh?”

“It smells really good. Thanks for letting me come over and eat.” Tatiana takes a seat in the chair Valbar pulls out for her and eyes the wine. Slowly, she reaches for it, only to have a beefy hand snatch it up.

“Ohhh no you don’t, kiddo!” Valbar snaps. “You’re not old enough yet.”

It was the reaction she expected. In all the times Tatiana has been to their house, Valbar has never let her drink. Still, she deflates and pouts, defiantly staring up at him while Leon watches with amusement.

“My birthday is so soon though!” she protests. “Pleeeeaaaase! I had the most awful encounter today and need to drink away my sorrow!”

“Bad run-in?” Leon asks as he sits. “Valbar dear, please pass the wine. And don’t worry, Tatiana, we got you that fancy sparkling cider so you can feel like a grown-up, too.”

Valbar heads back to the kitchen to retrieve what she presumes is her drink. Tatiana slouches in her seat, frowning, and whispers, “What if Valbar knew it was you who took me to that one college party and let me get hopped up on wine coolers when I was an 18-year-old?”

“I still can’t believe you thought that was juice,” Leon hisses quietly. “That whole night was one big disaster. Who thinks there’s actual bonafide _fruit juice_ at a college party?”

“I’m just a small town girl; I literally didn’t know any better,” Tatiana mutters, sighing wearily as Valbar comes back with her designated underage drink. It still looks good, though, so she screws open the lid and pours herself a glass without complaint.

The dinner is the nicest meal Tatiana has had in over a month. After living off of cold leftovers and sandwiches for that long, anything would seem good, but the food is truly delicious. Valbar isn’t a whiz in the kitchen, she would say, but he definitely knows his way with meat. The steaks are tender and seasoned, smeared with a soft blue cheese and balsamic reduction. The salad is fresh, the bread hot, and even her ridiculous sparkling juice is pretty refreshing.

Valbar, between bites, talks about a new contract the firm he works for has gotten to start drafting and building a fancy new hotel uptown. It’ll bring in a good deal of money, and if done very well, will be a good standard of quality for the company. He doesn’t know how big of a part he’ll have in the project yet, but he has high hopes that he’ll play an important role.

Leon talks about a few fancy weddings he’s decorated for in the past weeks, one of which Tatiana has heard of. A rich couple had a huge wedding and reception, and from what she’s heard, it was very lavish. Knowing that it was Leon’s doing doesn’t surprise her, nor does it surprise her to find that he’s also decorating for a new French restaurant on the main street of her own city.

And Tatiana? Well-

“I made good sales this week.” She pokes a chunk of steak fat around her plate. “And, well. That’s it, I think.”

Leon sighs and shakes his head, brandishing his wine glass. “Honestly? That’s it?”

Tatiana blushes. “Well, it’s not like our shop is a huge deal, and who needs a natural medicine and odds-and-ends shop for fancy things? We’re just kinda there, you know? I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

“She’s right. We don’t all have to decorate French restaurants or build fancy hotels.” Valbar gives a firm nod. “There’s a nice old-fashioned simplicity in running a shop, and Tatiana’s doing well for such a young thing.”

“Well, that’s true.” Leon sips his wine before setting down the glass and regarding her. “Did you like the text I sent you?”

“Ah!” Tatiana reaches into her pocket and finds her phone. She opens the messaging app and finds Leon’s message displayed to her, reading: 

> LEON: remember, we’re eating together tonight. Valbar’s going to grill meat. see you at 6 <3 _[sent at 8:32AM]_
> 
> LEON: THIS IS A GAYS ONLY EVENT _[sent at 8:33AM]_

She smiles and tucks her phone away again. “It got a laugh out of me at the store.”

Her embarrassing encounter whacks her over the head like a sack of bricks, and her face collapses. She groans and puts her face in her hands, then lies her head down softly on the dinner table. The clinking of knives against ceramic tells her her hosts are still eating, but she hears Valbar say, “What happened? You said you had something happen there earlier.”

Tatiana whips her face from her hands as she sits back up, planting her fists against the table with a sharp intake of breath. “I told Leon about this hot guy I met, right? And I saw him at the store.”

“You’ve given me the bare minimum about him.” Leon waves his salad fork in the air. “Did you do something stupid in front of him? Like you usually do?”

“Of course. Where do I start?” Against her concept of manners, Tatiana slumps in the chair and pushes her salad around, resting her head against a fist. “He’s this guy who started coming into my shop a couple of months ago. He comes in to pick up orders for his boss, some guy named Rudolf.”

“‘Rudolf?’” Leon echoes. “Albein Rudolf?”

“Yeah. Should I know who that is?” she asks. “Besides that he’s the guy seemingly with a ton of neck pain who is practically paying my bills.”

“Albein Rudolf is the richest guy for miles,” Valbar cuts in. “He’s a police captain to boot. I heard from a pal that he’s fixing to run for commissioner in a while.”

“And he hired me to plan and decorate his holiday party at the end of the year,” Leon reminds his husband. “That guy has some deeeeep pockets. I can’t believe he’s a fan of natural medicine enough to buy it so much.”

“I mean, it’s not a cure-all, but it works for a lot of things like pain and stress,” she protests. “You shouldn’t say it like that when I’m right here.”

“It’s curious,” Leon decides. “So, Mystery Man is an officer, then?”

“His name is Ezekiel Holt,” she tells them. “And he told me he was a sergeant at the local precinct.”

“What’s he like?” Valbar puts his steak knife down and leans forward over the table, a glimmer in his bright eyes. “He a good fellow? A nice boy?”

Hearing a large man like Ezekiel referred to as a “boy” is so startling to Tatiana that she snorts briefly before recovering. She sits up straight again and helps herself to another serving of salad before saying, “I suppose so. I don’t think I know him personally all that well.”

“Well, I think he must be nice if you like him,” Valbar says. “You’ve got good intuition.”

She hears Leon mumble under his breath, “How old do you have to be to be a police sergeant anyway?” while he scrounges around his cardigan pocket, but doesn’t pay it mind.

“Is he cute?” Valbar presses. “Give me, as the children say, ‘the deets.’”

“I don’t think any of the children have said that since 2012.” Tatiana squints, looks up to the ceiling, and puts a hand on her cheek as she thinks. “He’s actually pretty tall. You know, I think you’re definitely beefier than him, but you’re probably similar heights.”

Leon, still tapping away at his phone, releases a low, impressed whistle.

“Big guy for a big job,” Valbar muses.

“He looked really cute today, too.” She sighs and frowns, shaking her head. “Kinda scruffy… I’d never seen him in anything but a suit and tie, but he looked really cute in that jacket…”

A clinking sound echoes as Valbar taps his fork on his plate. He nods his head in a knowing action. “You, kiddo, have got it bad. I can tell.”

To hear someone else say it frightens Tatiana, very suddenly, and makes her feel cold in her stomach. But, she only smiles politely in response. It wouldn’t make sense to do anything else.

“Leon has a point, though—gotta wonder how old the guy is. Any clue?”

A different sort of fear grips Tatiana as she realizes she does not possess that information. Her smile falters, and she scrutinizes an image of Ezekiel in her mind. He- he doesn’t look old. Well, maybe he just doesn’t look _that_ old. If she’s recalling correctly, he has a few lines under his eyes, but those could be from lack of sleep. Or- or maybe he’s just aged well? Or- Oh, it doesn’t matter. She’s sure he’s not any more than five or so years older than her. He can’t be.

“How about we clean up and break out that pie?” Valbar suggests in the midst of her silence. “Sound good?”

Tatiana blinks and looks at her plate, then up at him and Leon, who is still studying something intently on his screen. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

They clean while Leon keeps scrolling through his phone. They load what they can into the dishwasher, and Valbar washes what they can’t and gives it to Tatiana to dry. She’s putting away leftover salad when she hears, “Aha!,” effectively catching both her and Valbar’s attention.

Leon stands and brandishes his phone towards them with a pleased smile. “Two interesting bits of info. First off is that Tatiana’s new friend is, in fact, actually really hot.”

She drops the Ziploc bag of salad, nearly. “How did you-?”

“Looks like there are personnel photos on the precinct’s page on the police site, and wrow.” He steps closer, holding his phone out to his husband, who takes it. Leon crosses his arms and peers at the screen alongside him. “I don’t usually go for blonds or guys in uniforms, but look at that _jawline.”_

Valbar nods appreciatively. “Nice and strong. He’s a looker.”

“L-“ Tatiana blinks, stares at them, then throws the bag of salad onto the counter and bolts the short distance towards them. “Let me seeeee!”

Valbar and Leon protest as she wrests the phone away from them. Tatiana turns away, hunches over the phone, and ignores them as she studies the photo.

It’s definitely him, and he’s definitely handsome. His photo is aligned underneath that of one Albein Rudolf, and she duly notes that Mr. Rudolf is a bulky, aging man, probably fifty or so, with snow white hair and a stern, square face. Beneath him, Ezekiel looks sharp and cool, head slightly turned away from the camera, like he knows how to pose just so for a photo. His hair, slicked back neatly, is a bit shorter in this image than it is now, and his expression is neutral—though, when she looks closer, she can see that same nervous undertone in his face that he usually has, as though he wants to ask if the photo is over and if he can go. It does look a little uncomfortable in that formal police uniform, with its high collar and stiff material, along with the medals on his chest, and-

“Cough it up!” Leon snatches his phone away. Tatiana squeaks as she is snapped, very rudely, out of the hold of Ezekiel’s eyes. Smirking teasingly, he holds the phone over her, his other hand pushed against the her head as she strains for it. “What, didn’t have enough of a look of him during your embarrassing grocery store encounter? Why _was_ that so embarrassing, anyway?”

Tatiana strains for the phone against Leon’s hand, scalding red at Valbar’s laughing and the recollection of the incident. “Because I picked _blueberries_ for him!”

“Oh, dear God!” Leon grimaces, lets go of her, and flicks his finger over the screen of the phone even as she rams into his side. “Second tidbit regarding his age-”

Oh, boy.

“Did some research, and it seems like the average age to be appointed a police sergeant iiiiiiiis…” He pokes his tongue out of his mouth and scrolls, then straightens up and gives her a sly smirk. “Hey, Tatiana, I didn't know you were into _old men.”_

She stiffens. “What?”

Valbar looks over Leon’s shoulder, then frowns and shakes his head at Leon. “Aww, that ain’t old at all. Don’t tease her. It just says 32, Tatiana.”

She blushes and reaches up to hold her cheeks. “Th-that’s still waaaaay older than me!”

Leon pockets his phone and picks up a platter from the counter, likely to put it away. “Well, that doesn’t mean that’s how old he is. That’s just the average age. He could be younger for sure. Probably is, if I had to guess.”

Panicked— _he’s old he’s old he’s old she feels like_ such _a creep_ —Tatiana takes fistfuls of her hair in her hands. “What if he’s older!?”

Leon’s lips wobble. “I’d be very amused.”

“Don’t be amused at this!” she cries. “Uuughhh! If he’s that old, he would _never_ want to date me!”

“He didn’t look old,” Valbar reminds them. “Don’t freak out.”

“What if he thinks I’m, like, a gold digger?” She yanks her hair a little more. “I don’t even know if he’s well-off, but-!”

“Let’s be real, everyone is rich compared to you,” Leon mutters as an aside.

Valbar finishes putting away one final knife. “Well, uh, let’s not think about that anymore. How ‘bout we sit down with some pie and Tatiana can tell us a little more about what happened today.”

She follows Valbar to the living room, flops down on a couch, and picks up a pillow to squeeze while she stares blankly at the ceiling. “I basically said it all. I talked too much, I didn’t give him my number and I picked blueberries for him. Like a dumbass." She goes scarlet and picks up a pillow, pushing it against her face. "I think it was the most awkward moments of my life.”

Leon brings plates of pie over and sets one down on the coffee table in front of her. “Why did you-”

“I don’t know!” she says loudly. “I don’t know at all! He was standing next to the blueberries for, like, five minutes, and I don’t know!"

“What a disaster,” Leon says. “Well, I’m sure you’ll get over it. One embarrassing encounter isn’t enough to kill you, as we know from experience, and I’m sure he won’t even dwell on it.”

_But I sure will,_ Tatiana thinks about protesting, but she lets the topic drop instead. For the rest of the night, she almost goes mindlessly through conversations with her friends—sharing amusing college stories with Valbar, discussing work a little more, talking about this and that regarding interesting happenings. It’s nice and all, it really is, but Tatiana keeps squeezing the pillow tight, trying and failing to not contemplate whether or not she should have given Ezekiel her phone number.


	7. Zeke Hates Social Media *it's always sunny in philadelphia theme plays*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY this one went through some heavy rewrites just in the past day alone,, i'll be going through later to edit but i'm pretty sure it's fairly solid. the chapter is also really Long bc i just really....really wanted them to stop being intensely awkward with one another, so.
> 
> ALSO shout out to my friend Sam (@DT75Art on twitter and dt75artblog on tumblr!! pls check her out) for suggesting Tatiana's Instagram bio which is a tumblr post by uh. tumblr user tasty-bitch-nugget-666 fas;ldajsal;df

“So. My dad tells me you have a crush.”

The Rudolfs, consisting only of Rudolf himself and Alm, are close family friends of Zeke’s. They have been since Zeke was in his mid-20s, and it’s Rudolf that Zeke owes for his current employment. There was a time there for a while where he was drifting aimlessly, more than a little lost and unsure of his purpose, until Rudolf offered to hire him as an officer. Zeke has known Alm, who is currently sitting at his dining table and holding an orange slice above Ephraim’s head, since he was thirteen. He feels it’s safe to say he’s close with the boy, especially with all the time they spend together working on Alm’s homework.

Zeke stops pouring a cup of hot chocolate for Alm. He turns his head towards him, lips pressed and brow quirked, and sets the mug on the kitchen countertop. “Your father doesn’t know anything. Do you want cream on this?”

“Obviously, I do. Thanks.” Alm drops the orange slice into Ephraim’s open mouth, laughing as the dog loudly snarfs it. “And Dad knows everything when it comes to reading you. He says you’re totally over the moon about this girl.” There’s an open history textbook on Zeke’s table, surrounded by loose papers, pencils, a binder of notes. They’re in the midst of a last-minute study session only planned an hour before. Alm slides up the sleeves of his dark blue hoodie and picks up a pencil.

A cool wash of air rushes over Zeke as he opens the fridge. Immediately, still smacking his lips from the orange slice, Ephraim is at his side and snuffling a takeout container on the lower shelf. Zeke nudges him aside gently, grabs a can of whipped cream, and shuts the refrigerator. Ephraim keeps on his heels, his blunt claws clicking on the hardwood floor as he excitedly taps his paws. Zeke gives up eventually, plucks a strawberry from the fruit bowl in the middle of the counter, gives the whipped cream can a shake, and spurts a dab onto the berry. Ephraim yips and prances on his back legs for a second before Zeke drops the cream-covered berry into his open mouth.

“You’re like a garbage disposal,” he tells the dog. “Go play with your new toy.”

“So?” Alm pipes up from the table again as Ephraim runs past, tapping his pencil on the table. “Cute girl? Come on, I wanna know about her.”

“I’d rather talk about your homework.” Zeke gives the can of cream another firm shake before squirting it onto the hot chocolate, where it starts to froth at the edges. “Wouldn’t you rather talk about the invention of the modern guillotine and how it contributed to the Reign of Terror in eighteenth century France?”

“Oh, abso-freakin’-lutely not,” Alm replies. “I’ll just ask Faye to help me out in study hall tomorrow. Come on, I haven’t come over in a while ‘cause of school and your work. I wanna know what’s up with Zeke: The man, the myth, the legend.”

Zeke sighs. He puts the cap back on the can of whipped cream and picks up Alm’s drink. He sets it in front of him and grunts as he takes a seat in the chair adjacent, sighs again, and watches as Alm blows on the chocolate before taking a tentative sip. “You’re sixteen. I’m under no obligation to share details regarding my private life with you.”

Alm blinks and lowers his mug. There’s a small speck of frothy cream on the corner of his mouth. “But I want you to.”

“We all want something, Albein.”

“And I’m sure what you want is this cute girl’s number,” Alm jabs back.

Zeke pauses in the middle of picking up the textbook, instantly transported back to the wildly awkward incident that morning. He grimaces and puts the book back down, some surge of emotion rushing through him as he thinks about how he didn’t give her his number. He picks out guilt, regret, anger, frustration- A whole slew of positive, wonderful feelings.

“I saw her this morning,” Zeke admits, and as a sign he’s given up, shuts the textbook and slides it back towards Alm. “At the grocery store. She picked me those blueberries on by the stove.”

“That’s kinda weird.”

“Oh, it was insanely weird. But also, really charming in this way I can’t describe.” Zeke huffs and puts his chin in a hand, glances Ephraim’s way, and finds him ferociously flinging his new toy to-and-fro through the living room. “I thought about giving her my number. And then I didn’t.”

“Why not?” Alm asks. He puts his mug down and starts to straighten up his pencils and pens, collecting the loose papers into a stack. “I mean, objectively speaking, you’re like, a nice-looking guy. She’d probably have liked it if you gave her your number.”

Zeke grimaces again and keeps his eyes focused on Ephraim. “I just don’t think I should have.” He turns his hand from his chin to cup his face then, rubbing his forehead. “I don’t expect someone your age to understand, but it’s- it’s hard to get into another relationship when one like the one I had crashed and burned the way it did.”

“I can’t understand because no one ever tells me about it,” Alm replies, frustration evident in his voice. A moment pauses, and then he quiets down and mumbles, “I know it must’ve been hard. Just, you know, given everything that had happened to you.”

His stomach suddenly flips in a small fit of anxiety that lingers in his gut. He squirms, removes his hand to rub at a temple, and takes a deep breath. He tries, tries not to think about _her_. About all the ways he failed.

“I wasn’t able to prioritize the things in my life back then, Alm,” he explains. He sighs, presses his hand against his mouth and glares out the window straight ahead. “I was a terrible partner, even if I wouldn’t admit it at the time. And, then-” He pauses, feels the ridges of his palm against his face. The lattice of scars and burns there that start to tingle as he thinks about them. Quietly, he removes his hand from his face and rests it against the table.

“I don’t think you should let that stop you from trying to put yourself back out there and be happy again or whatever,” Alm remarks. He whistles suddenly, calling Ephraim to him, and the dog comes scrambling over soon enough. “I think you’re pretty great now. You’re nice and considerate, so I think anyone would be pretty lucky to be your partner.” There’s a silence, and then Alm spreads his arms to gesture at their surroundings. “And you’re rich! That’s nice.”

“Well, I’m not looking for someone who just wants my money.” Zeke sighs and shakes his head. “I just didn’t give her my phone number. I- I don’t know if it would work out. I don’t know if I’m ready again. I just don’t want to inconvenience another person with my own issues.”

There’s more silence. Alm goes back to sipping his drink, while Zeke gets up and goes to the kitchen for a glass of water for himself. He’s pouring it, eyeing the blueberries on the counter, when Alm says, “Aren’t you lonely?”

Zeke falters a little, and the pitcher of water nearly slips in his hand. He swallows, but keeps his back turned to Alm, and starts to pour the water again. The word “lonely” sounds heavy, like it’s threatening to crush him. Hearing Alm say it reminds Zeke that he sleeps alone, eats alone, lives alone. That he doesn’t like that about his life. That he doesn’t like just having a dog for company, no matter how he loves that dog. The word “lonely” sounds grim to Zeke, and he feels a familiar, gripping anxiety start to bubble in him.

“I- I know this is a little heavy to say,” Zeke starts, “but I just don’t feel like I’m able to make another person happy, and I don’t want to break any more hearts trying to prove myself wrong.”

Alm is quiet; Zeke hears him slurping at his drink. He picks up his own glass of water and returns to the table, settling down with yet another grunt. Ephraim is flopped beneath the table, licking at a spot on the floor for no particular reason. Alm is trying to not make eye contact with Zeke, and he can tell he feels guilty for asking that particular, loaded question.

“Sorry,” Alm says finally. “That wasn’t right of me to pry.”

“It’s not prying.” Zeke curls his fingers around his glass. His hand is a little wet from the condensation forming. “It’s just a bit of a complex topic for me. It’s hard for me to talk about without feeling… anxious. And, frankly, hopeless. And scared. And a lot of other things. Adults don’t like talking or thinking about the future just as much as you.”

“Time is a bitch and I wish it would stop for five seconds,” Alm says blankly. “And relationships are hard.”

Zeke cracks a smile at that. “That’s a good way to put it.”

They pass the next hour with studying, going over names and events in the French Revolution. Alm seems fairly well-prepared for his exam on Friday, and they order food to bring the study session to a close. Alm is lying on the floor in front of the door, patting the ground in front of Ephraim’s paws, and staring at the dog intently while Zeke washes some dishes in his sink.

“Hey, I just thought of something fun,” Alm calls over. “If you tell me that girl’s name, I can look up her social media.”

Zeke blinks and looks up from a pot and the swirling, soapy water inside. “What?”

He hears a little “oomph” as Alm gets to his feet, and then he’s sitting at a stool by the counter, spinning in it once, twice, three times before he pulls his phone out of the pocket of his hoodie. “Yeah, that could be fun. Like, her Instagram or something, if she has one. What’s her name?”

“I don’t really like social media,” Zeke says hesitantly. Alm looks hopeful though, and wanting for something to do while they wait for their food, so he says, “Tatiana Niyazova. She works at this natural medicine and odds-and-ends shop on Main Street.”

“I think I know the place you’re talking about. Faye goes there sometimes for stuff during lunch.” Alm puts his elbows on the counter, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he taps something into his phone. “Hmm. Not a lot of Tatianas in the area, so I think this is it. Green hair?”

He pulls the pot from the sink, gives it a shake to discard excess water, and puts it in the other sink to load it into the dishwasher later. He has a bad feeling about this whole ordeal, but replies with, “That would be the one, I think.”

Alm hums as he scrolls through the pictures. “Aw, she’s cute! Come look.”

Zeke grunts and turns his head as Alm tries to show him the phone. “I don’t think that’s proper.”

An exasperated sigh leaves Alm, and he dramatically drapes himself on the counter. “What do you mean it’s ‘not proper?’”

“It’s just-” Zeke fumbles for a moment, embarrassed. “I don’t know how proper it is for me to look at pictures of a woman I haven’t been invited to look at.”

Alm picks his head up and regards Zeke, looking to be pondering this and throwing it around his sixteen-year-old brain. Then, he frowns, sits up, and says defiantly, “It’s not like they’re nudes!”

A glass measuring cup goes crashing into the sink as it slips from Zeke’s soapy hands, and he says, loudly, “Albein!”

“It’s a public account!” Alm continues arguing, and he looks at his phone again. “And it looks like she’s got a fair amount of followers, so it’s not like she’s keeping anything secret. Come on, look! There are lots of dog pictures.” He starts to tap at his screen. “Here, I’ll put the display like this so you can just scroll through and look. It’s totally harmless, Zeke.”

“I don’t want to be creepy,” Zeke replies. “I- I don’t know. Social media stresses me out. I don’t use it, and-”

“Looking at it once won’t kill you, Mr. Chicken.”

Zeke dries his hands on a dish towel, scowls, and then snatches the phone from Alm’s hands. “Okay, fine. Just don’t call me a chicken again.” He sighs, leans against the counter, and starts to peruse the photos, despite the awkward feeling it gives him, especially with Alm looking over his shoulder.

The first picture confirms that it is absolutely Tatiana, even though he can’t see her in it. It’s a picture of a small curly-haired dog, but there’s a strand of what is undoubtedly her hair in the photo, and the way the caption is written simply sounds like the way she talks. The next is a picture of her, striking a ridiculous pose in her workplace that makes him actually smile. And then the next picture is of a dog, and the next is another dog, and- and _another_ dog, and wow, this is actually a lot of dogs-

“I think she likes dogs,” Alm says quietly.

Well. A woman after his own heart.

Zeke starts scrolling a little faster, humming as more pictures of things like sewing projects, cats, dogs, and scenic photos scroll past, and then stops abruptly on one.

He stops abruptly on it because it’s a picture of Tatiana.

In a swimsuit.

It looks like she’s at the beach in the picture, and he notes that it was from about six months ago. Someone else has obviously taken the picture, and she’s standing on the cusp of the waves, grinning at whoever is taking it. Her hair is in a braid, she has both hands resting on the lip of a floppy white sun hat, and her eyes are shut in the delighted expression she’s making. The sands are yellow, the water a vibrant blue made even brighter with a filter, and-

Zeke feels like he shouldn’t be looking at the photo. It’s not scandalous or anything, and like Alm said, it’s public, but she’s showing skin. A lot of it. His heart thumps in his chest as he gives into temptation and briefly takes in the sight of her in the cream-colored bikini, offset against her warm skin. Her body looks soft, all round curves and a short, chubby figure, and for just a moment, he thinks about what it would be like if he could just-

For a second, Zeke forgot Alm was looking at these photos with him. Bright-red and fumbling, he scrolls past the beach photo, stammering something of an excuse, and Alm is laughing in his ear.

* * *

Zeke is alone now, just as he planned to be at the start of the day before Alm called to ask for studying help. He had friends to go to the movies with, and took his leave around nine, so it’s the usual now. The uneventful usual of sitting in his penthouse on his own, with a heavy feeling of anxiety in his gut for no reason, while his dog goes scampering around and chasing nothing.

The anxiety is heavier today, after that little conversation earlier. Zeke is lying down on his couch, a can of beer set on the coffee table next to him. The squeaking of a toy echoes, and he hears Ephraim growling ferociously as he whips his head around and disembowels a stuffed alpaca. He glances up from his prone position as he reaches for his beer, noting with a touch of exasperation that there is toy fluff all over the carpet, and he’s going to probably have to vacuum after he cleans up the big chunks.

“Give me a break,” he implores the dog. The sound of his voice is a siren call, and immediately Ephraim is darting over to him, lunging onto Zeke with delight. Zeke lets out a loud “OOF” as the dog lands squarely on his upper body; his drink sloshes a little within the can, and he grunts and grimaces as Ephraim kneads his large paws into his chest and licks his jaw. “You’re not- a puppy- anymore!”

Ephraim pulls back, panting happily, and pats the side of Zeke’s face with a paw. And then he calms, as though sensing the anxiety hanging over him, and tucks his face into Zeke’s shoulder, peering up at him with big gold eyes. His tongue flickers out over his nose, and he keeps looking at him, harder, harder, as though trying to ask what it is that’s wrong.

“My short-term problem is that I can’t breathe,” he wheezes. “Ease up!”

Ephraim doesn’t move until Zeke puts his beer can down and pinches his fingers together, imitating having a small treat between them. Ephraim’s head flies up off of his chest, and he stares intently at Zeke’s fingers. He mimes throwing it across the room, and with a yip, Ephraim goes bounding away, scrabbling and tripping over himself as he rushes for inevitable disappointment. And indeed, he comes back a second later, ears drooped low, and flops over at the foot of the couch to let Zeke rub him between the ears.

“Do you think I’m unlovable?” he asks the dog.

Ephraim’s ears perk. He looks up at Zeke. There is a look in his eyes that suggests, if he could talk, he might say something along the lines of, “I love you.”

“That’s reassuring.” Zeke rubs the dog between his ears more, sifting his fingers through his short brown hair. Again, he sits up a little and reaches for his beer. “But I mean in a romantic sense.”

Of course, the dog doesn’t reply. He puts his head down against his paws, making it harder for Zeke to rub him, and peers up at him with visible concern.

Zeke sits up fully, swings himself into a sitting position, and scoots over to allow the dog to hop up onto the couch with him. Ephraim sits diligently at his side, pressed up against him, and watches, nose twitching, as Zeke knocks back the rest of his beer. The thick, bitter taste burns his throat, and he coughs slightly as he presses the back of his hand to his mouth. There is a faint buzz in his body, but not enough for him to be drunk. He’s never gotten drunk easily.

He sniffs and puts the can back down on the coffee table, then reaches for his phone directly next to it. Across the hall, he hears the couple who live in the other penthouse returning, laughing together as they are wont to do. It doesn’t really help to make him feel better, and he groans and leans back, tilting his head over the back of the couch.

“You know. I really worry I screwed up my only chance,” he mumbles. “What if- what if Nyna was it? And I went and made a mess of it all.” He looks down to his phone in his grip, the screen flickering on as he tilts it towards him, and pauses. And then, he unlocks it, pulls up the app store, and, almost embarrassedly, pulls up the download for the Instagram app.

What if she _wasn’t_ it?

“I’m an almost thirty-year-old man about to download Instagram to look at a woman I think I have a crush on,” he tells his dog. “She’ll likely never be interested in me, and I don’t know if I should do this.”

Ephraim licks his chops, looks down at the phone, then up to him, as though to say, “Coward. Do it.”

“You’re enabling me,” he complains. “Don’t enable me!”

He looks down at his phone and to the app, dragging his tongue over his teeth. He looks at the app, then up and out the windows, over his terrace, to the busy city skyline, then down to the phone once more. With a sigh, he cups it in both of his hands, thumbs hovering over the download button, and he reasons with himself. He reasons that he’s not a creep. He’s not going to get an account and just follow Tatiana. He could follow… other people. He’s sure some people he knows have an account. And, he’s not going to spend long, long hours poring over her social media account, staring at that one picture of her in a bikini on the beach in particular. He doesn’t want to creep on her and make her or himself uncomfortable.

Zeke just… wants to see Tatiana’s face.

He hits download.

The app installs, opens up, and prompts him to create an account and go through a few procedures before allowing him to do as he pleases. Unable to find a picture of himself on his phone, he turns the camera to Ephraim, who perks up his ears and lets his tongue hang out, and takes a picture of him for the icon. Zeke grumbles as he flicks past follow recommendations, colorful and vibrant videos of this and that, and finds the search function. And, carefully, still reasoning that he’s not doing anything wrong, he types in her name.

She comes up almost immediately; he recognizes her icon from his visit with Alm. It’s colorful, and he notes that it actually looks like a close-up of her face in that one beach picture. Zeke chews on the inside of his cheek as he enters her account; his leg starts jittering, his heel tapping against the floor. Ephraim flops down next to him with a sigh, eyes starting to drift shut as he submits to a sudden urge to doze.

With a lack of overthinking he has not had in a long time, Zeke hits the follow button, watching as her follower account goes from 678 to 679. He doesn’t know if that’s a significant number or not. He hopes she doesn’t pay any attention to him, though he figures, given that his username isn’t really that far off from his real name, she wouldn’t have a hard time deducing it’s him. He takes a deep breath, leans back again, prays she doesn’t think he’s a creep, and then hunches over again and studies her account.

It looks… normal. He thinks. Social media has never been his forte. Her display name is just her name; her username is tatiis, and he smiles. Her bio has no extreme personal information beyond her name, and he figures that, with a following of almost 700 people, that that is probably pretty smart of her. Most notably, there is a small portion of it that reads, “Soft as silk/ Sweet as honey/ Dumb as shit/ I ain’t got no money.”

For the first time in a fairly long amount of time, Zeke snorts and laughs aloud. The feeling is alien, to some extent, and wholly pleasant. He keeps that smile on his face, the back of his hand pressed to his mouth, as he continues.

He scrolls through her pictures again, noting with even more amusement the sheer amount of dogs and cats, or birds she has seen on the sidewalk. There are pictures of food and sunsets, and also sewing projects—he didn’t know she sewed, but everything looks to be made by her. He then notices that there is a new picture on her account from the last time he checked it a few hours ago, and it’s of her and two men. The top of her head is visible, her big eyes peeking over the bottom of the photo as she focuses more of the two men, who look to be talking to one another and unaware of their presence in her picture. One is a large, burly man in flannel, and the other is a slighter man with soft purple hair. The caption is nothing more than a rose emoji, and if he had to guess, he’d say they’re friends of hers.

Zeke sighs and reaches, burying a hand into Ephraim’s fur. The dog grumbles and twists, turning onto his back and sticking his paws up in the air in a pose that Zeke knows means, “Belly rubs, now. Now. Now,” and so he complies and smooths a hand back and forth over the dog’s stomach.

“Do you think I should have done it?” he asks the empty space around him. “Given her my phone number, I mean.”

The silence, as always, does not have a response.

* * *

“Do you think I should have given that guy my phone number?” Tatiana asks Valbar. They’re in his truck, cruising down the freeway as he drives her home. She missed the last train by just a few seconds, and her hosts graciously offered to give her a ride. The freeways are relatively clear on a weeknight at this time, and they’re going a good speed. Tatiana expects to be home in ten minutes.

“Well, sure I do.” Valbar puts one large arm on the back of her chair as he stretches a bit, balancing his other hand on his steering wheel. “I think you’re a lovely girl, Tatiana, and anyone would be lucky to have your friendship.”

Tatiana chews on this, curling and uncurling her fingers in the air as she thinks. “I dunno. I feel… I feel like when I look at this guy, he’s really put-together and cool. He’s always—usually—wearing these nice suits, and even when he looks nervous, he always looks like he knows what he’s doing. And, you know, I’m me. Don’t you think he’s probably better suited to date, I don’t know… A person like that? Like him? All cool and suave?”

“Well.” Valbar pauses, humming. “I think ‘you’ is real swell, Tatiana. It’s not like only people who are exactly alike can be together. I mean, Leon and I couldn’t be more different, and I think that’s what keeps our relationship interesting. I think opposites attract. Within reason, of course.”

“I’m just _so_ opposite.” Tatiana slumps in her chair, glaring at the road ahead. “No one wants to date a college dropout who sells ground ginger for a living.”

“Aw, shucks, don’t say that!” Valbar takes his hand from the back of her seat and pats her shoulder fondly with it. “Tatiana, there ain’t no shame in leaving school, and especially not for the reason you did. You didn’t drop out ‘cause you were lazy or unmotivated, ya just… couldn’t afford it anymore. You’re doing really well for yourself, and I know Leon is proud of you.”

“I bet he’s super smart.” Tatiana lifts a hand to her mouth and starts anxiously chewing on a nail. “What would I say if he asked me about- about the economy?”

The car swerves a little as Valbar lets out a strong, warm laugh that makes her smile. He ducks his head and wheezes for a split second before looking back to the road, a grin on his face, and just shakes his head in response.

She keeps smiling, even as she says, “I’m serious! I don’t have anything interesting to say. I don’t know anything about politics, or the economy, or- or stuff like that. I know a lot about sewing, and I know a lot about cats, and cooking, aaaaaand… Some TV shows? I know a lot about video games.”

Valbar grins wider. “One of the best parts of a relationship is learning things from one another. You think I knew how to talk to Leon about stuff like interior design and event planning, or that he knew ‘bout construction? A lot of what we talk about together is stuff we do at work or our interests. Again, it keeps things going. Always learning from one another is a lot of fun.”

“Hmmmmm.” Tatiana puts her chin in her hand, staring at the street lights as they enter the city. “Well… I guess my girlfriend and I didn’t have a lot in common, but we got along really well.”

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you talk about her.” Valbar gives her a curious glance from the corner of his eye. “What was she like?”

In an instant, Tatiana feels like she has been transported out of the truck, away from the city, and back to their farming community on the beach, with the scent of the sea and the fresh berry harvest carried on the air. She can hear the lap of the waves on the white sand beaches, the peaceful bustle of the little town as she walked down the main street with friends in the summer, the gentle hands of a variety of people. She recalls, in particular, beautiful yellow eyes like the sun, a tall, lean figure, and black hair that caught violet in the light.

“We were best friends since childhood,” Tatiana recalls fondly. “She was this total jock who was on the softball team in high school. She would always take me out to this really good ice cream parlor after her games, and she’d let me wear her letterman jacket. She was the nicest, most beautiful girl ever. We would- we would do everything together with our friend August, and…”

With the sound and sight of the waves in her mind’s eye comes the sudden sound of a car shrieking to a halt, the dull sound of a body hitting the pavement, and Tatiana’s smile falters.

“I really loved her,” she says, and she curls her hands into fists and rests them in her lap. The feeling in her stomach is cold, hollow. “But- but she-“

“Leon told me,” Valbar says, his voice suddenly hushed, and his hand is patting her again. “You don’t need to say it, Tatiana.”

She sighs and slumps her shoulders, desperately trying to remember walking out of the corner store, a letterman jacket slung over her shoulders and a bag of cold sodas and snacks waiting to be eaten on the beach in her hand, someone’s arm draped over her shoulder, laughter as she cracks a joke and makes her smile-

“It makes me feel like… I’m kinda broken,” Tatiana admits. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I know I- I couldn’t have done anything about it. But I just feel like- like maybe I’ll never be ready for anyone else. Maybe I’m too broken for anyone else. I don’t want to give someone something broken.” She rests her fists against her thighs, lips quivering suddenly. “I don’t really know how to explain how I feel. I went on dates with people in college, but I just always felt weird. Empty, hollow, cold. I was always anxious that I’d give myself away, only to be… given back, if that makes sense. And I worry what that would do to me.”

“It sounds like you’ve got a lot on your pretty little mind.” Valbar sighs suddenly, a heavy and forlorn sound so starkly different from his bellowing laugh minutes before. “I know how you feel. I lost my wife a few years ago. That loss consumes you and makes you feel unlovable, somehow. Sorta just like you don’t want to bother with anyone else, just so you don’t get hurt again.”

“Yeah,” Tatiana whispers. She gives Valbar a glance, guilt striking her at his frown. “I’m sorry about your wife, Valbar. I shouldn’t have taken the conversation in such a dark direction.”

He sniffs deeply suddenly, straightens his shoulders, and makes a turn. “No problem. It sounds like you needed to get that off your chest, and I’m always happy to listen to a pal.”

“It felt nice to verbalize it,” she admits, and then, “Take this turn here.”

“Sadness aside,” he says, “do you need anything while I’m driving you around? Need any groceries that are too much for you to carry home or something?”

Tatiana blinks, thinks about it, then replies, “I don’t need to make a big trip, but going to the corner store really quick for a few things would be nice, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure, no problem at all. Got nothing else goin’ on tonight. Where’s the closest store?”

Tatiana pulls her phone from the pocket of her coat, pulls up a map app, and finds that the closest one is a small corner store just a block or so down. Valbar takes the turns she instructs, and they’re silent in the wake of their rather heavy conversation. She peers at the screen of her phone to occupy herself, and then jumps as her phone pings with a notification. It’s just an Instagram notification that pops down from the top of her screen, and she puts her thumb on the banner to swipe it away. And then she pauses, peers at the username, and scrutinizes it for a minute.

Most of the people who follow her are people she doesn’t know, so she’s stopped paying much mind to who follows her. It actually looks like they’ve unfollowed her after only a minute, which isn’t uncommon. She herself has done it before, maybe after accidentally following someone. But this username says, very clearly, e.holt, and she considers it for a moment. There’s another ping while she’s thinking about this, letting her know that the same person has liked a picture—a picture that she discovers is about a year old, just of a fluffy Newfoundland dog she found at an outdoor market.

Tatiana wonders if this is a coincidence. The user’s icon is just a very, very cute dog with striking gold eyes, and their page is totally blank. There is nothing to indicate it’s any particular person, but she is kind of hoping that it is who she thinks it is.

* * *

Zeke liked a really old picture, and now he needs another beer.

To be fair, it was not _extremely_ old, and it was not like it was a picture of her in a swimsuit. It was a picture of a really big, curly-haired dog (a Newfoundland, he thinks, those are the only dogs he’s ever seen that get to be that big), nothing creepy. It would’ve been extremely weird of him to like the picture of her on the beach from six months ago, and he should be thanking his lucky stars that he unconsciously pressed the like button on a harmless dog picture.

But it’s still embarrassing, and he wanted another drink anyway. There is nothing in his refrigerator, however, as he tries to limit his alcohol intake to just a couple of drinks per week. The closest corner store is still open at this time, so he changes out of his sweatpants and t-shirt back into jeans and a hoodie, grabs his keys from the table by the door, warns a mostly-asleep Ephraim to behave himself, and leaves. He takes the elevator down, uninterrupted at this late hour, into the parking garage, finds his car, and climbs in. And Zeke sits there in the driver’s seat, pressing his key into the ignition, and then stops. Stops, grits his teeth, and hunches over the steering wheel.

“Idiot,” he hisses. “Idiot, idiot, idiot.”

If she wasn’t made nervous by him before, he feels she certainly must be now. Who else except a pure creep likes a picture that old, bikini picture or not? Maybe he needs to tell Rudolf that he can’t go pick up his orders for him anymore, because he cannot, in fact, ever go down that street ever again for fear of discomforting her with his presence.

Maybe he’s going to need two beers.

The streets aren’t busy at this hour; nearly 11 at night. He makes his way to a corner store a couple of blocks away, trying to quell the tense feeling of anxiety in his stomach, but it feels like it’s strangling him. Choking him. Pulling his gut downwards, down to his feet. He’s gotten used to that feeling over the years, but has a hard time adjusting to it now in this particular situation. He doesn’t like it.

“We’re okay,” he tells the empty space around him. “Everything is going to be okay. It was just one stupid thing.”

Just one stupid thing. Just one stupid thing. All of his “just one stupid thing”s have piled up over the years. He’s got a whole pile of just one stupid things he did, stupid things that ruined his life, stupid things that kept him from being happy.

Zeke drums his fingers over the steering wheel, breathing carefully, and pulls into the parking lot of the corner store.

And then his phone pings.

He gets late night messages all the time, oftentimes regarding work: New cases, requests to come in early, so on so forth. So he parks, picks up his phone, and does not think much of it as he activates his phone to stare at the lockscreen.

_tatiis has followed you_

Zeke stares. He unlocks his phone, pulls up the infernal app, and stares. His leg starts jittering again, tapping against the brake, and he looks at his follower count of one, clicks that follower count, and sees her icon staring back at him.

“Okay.” Zeke leans back in his seat and stares up at the roof of his car. “Okay. Alright. Okay.”

* * *

Tatiana really hopes, if e.holt is Ezekiel, that he doesn’t think that she’s creepy for following him after he followed her for one minute and then unfollowed. She’s about 80% sure that it is him, and that him liking that photo is a good sign, but she can’t know for sure. For all she knows, she could’ve followed a random creep sitting in a basement somewhere, salivating over her photos, and shudders. She supposes she’ll find out soon enough. Guys like that usually make moves on her through the DM system within a day, tops, and then promptly get blocked.

The clerk working greets her as she walks through the automatic doors of the shop, and she barely pays them any mind, only giving them a thin smile as she grabs a shopping basket from a stack. It’s nearly deserted in this small convenience store, save for a few people here and there. She sees a few nurses from a nearby hospital, probably getting food while on their break, a couple of people who look like they’re just out for a late-night snack, and not much of anyone else.

Tatiana just needs some eggs, some bread, some milk, and maybe some boxed tea as a nice treat. She hums as she goes through the aisles, regarding the prices carefully before pulling things off of shelves. She’s reaching for a box of tea concentrate when her phone pings at her, and she sets it in her basket before pulling her phone out of her coat pocket.

_e.holt has followed you back_

Tatiana stares at this, presses her lips, and slips her phone back into her pocket after waiting one second, then two, then three to see if anything happens. A DM, another like of a photo, something, anything. She continues on her way, head spinning as she mindlessly grabs a carton of eggs from the cold section without even checking to see if they’re cracked. She puts them in her basket, arranges the carton around the box of tea, and then hears, “Oh, boy.”

* * *

Zeke has his phone in his hand when he sees Tatiana. He sees her before she sees him, and when she looks over, he notices an expression of alarm on her face. It worries him, very briefly, until her face settles into just surprise from that alarm. She has a small basket of groceries, and he feels very self-consciously, suddenly, to only have a bottle of beer in his hands.

She looks at him standing there, a little dazedly, by the alcoholic drinks, and doesn’t know what to say. They’re staring, staring, just staring, not even breathing, as though it’s the first time they’re seeing one another again, those couple of months ago in her store. He looks down to the beer in his hand, puts it back on the shelf, and feels acutely aware of the fact he’s only in jeans and a hoodie, that he still hasn’t shaved since the morning, that he’s even scruffier than he was over twelve hours ago.

Tatiana finally speaks, patting down her hair as she becomes self-conscious of the strands of it hanging out of their confines. “Hi.”

Carefully, he gives her a small look out of the corner of his eye. “Miss Niyazova.”

He sounds so stiff, as careful as always, and she smiles. She walks towards him, a hand running along the plastic shelf holding up drinks, and nonchalantly picks up a can of sparkling lemonade. “I did say that when you call me ‘Miss Niyazova,’ it sounds like we’re in the 1920s, right?”

Zeke clears his throat, burning. That teasing lilt of her voice is cute, unbearably so. She’s getting closer, and he wonders if he should keep dithering by the alcohol, or if he should reach for a nonalcoholic option. “So you did. I just- I just don’t have an easy time with referring to people casually. Part of my job, you see.”

“That’s okay, I understand.” Tatiana puts the lemonade in her basket, nestled next to the tea concentrate, and grabs a peach-flavored soda she’s been meaning to try for a while. “I wouldn’t mind, though. Really. Like, if you’re referring to me formally because you think I would mind, I wouldn’t.”

“That’s good to know.” Zeke gives up, figures no one is going to demonize him, and grabs the same bottle of beer from the shelf, and then another of the exact same kind. “I- I- I’m not a heavy drinker, if that’s what it looks like.”

“I imagine with a job as stressful as yours, a drink every now and then is good for unwinding.” She turns back to the shelves. “I didn’t see anything.”

He smiles, though the expression feels empty, and looks to the shelves as well. “Mm.”

They’re quiet. Across the store comes the sound of the clerk checking someone out, quietly and quickly packing their purchases into a plastic bag that rustles. Someone in the aisle over answers a phone call, sounding exasperated with whomever is on the other end. Tatiana puts one more drink in her basket, gives Ezekiel a subtle glance again, and feels like her phone is burning a hole through her pocket. He feels the same, as though the phone in his hand not holding the beers is a heavy weight unlike anything he’s held, and both know that the other is thinking of the same thing.

“I hope you weren’t… bothered by what I did,” he starts.

Tatiana looks at him, wide-eyed. “Hm?”

“I, uh. I followed you, and then unfollowed you. I didn’t want you to think I was creepy, and I didn’t mean to like that picture,” he continues awkwardly, and he coughs into his hand, thinking, _This is exactly why I hate social media._ “I, uh, I was looking through your account, but I- My finger slipped, you see, and I didn’t realize how old the picture was. I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to impose on you or be so weird.”

Tatiana blinks and stares, tilts her head, and relief washes through her. She grins at him, a dazzling expression, and rests a hand on her chest. “Oh, geez, that’s no problem. I wasn’t bothered at all! I hope you weren’t off-put by me following you like that.”

“Oh, of course not. You’re in for nothing,” he assures. “I never use social media. Prepare to be disappointed.”

“It’s fun!” she tells him. “I love posting pictures and stuff. I try to not get too personal, but it gives me something to do when I’m bored and not sewing or something.”

“So you do sew?” Zeke shifts, balancing the drinks between his upper arm and his abdomen, and pulls out his phone. “I was extremely impressed with what I saw. You look like you have a great talent, Tatiana.”

They both stop, smiling blankly at one another, and his expression falls as her smile brightens until it reaches her eyes. She watches, delighted, as color floods his face, and she doesn’t call out this usage of her name. She doesn’t make a big deal out of it beyond this big smile, doesn’t make a fuss to make him uncomfortable. She just looks at him, bright-eyed and with a vivid color in her cheeks, and forgets to breathe for a couple of seconds.

“Thank you,” she says—Zeke doesn’t know if she’s thanking him for the compliment, for the usage of her name, or possibly both. “That means so much.”

“I-it’s no problem.” Zeke looks down at his phone, back up at her, then back down to his phone. “My friends call me Zeke.”

“‘Zeke,’” she repeats, feeling the name in her mouth. He likes the way it sounds when she says it; it sounds soft in her voice, the sharp sounds of it suddenly gentle. “Isn’t that cute!”

“Well-” He flounders a little, then says, “I don’t know about ‘cute,’ but it’s much more casual than Ezekiel, so it has that going for it.”

“I like it very much.” Tatiana grips her phone again as she’s emboldened, opens her mouth, and is fully prepared to ask, “Can I have a way to contact you?”

Then she stops.

He does the same, tensing up as he prepares the same question, and then thinks against it.

They both think, in this moment, “Do I even want to be doing this again?”

Zeke thinks of a woman with soft gold hair and wary blue eyes, staring at him in a hospital room. She looks pensive, as she always does, slightly guarded. It’s an expression he fell in love with. He felt drawn to that careful behavior of hers, so reflective of his own. There is that caution in her expression, along with guilt as she stands up from her seat next to his bed, promising to have her things out of their shared space by the time he’s out of the hospital—though, that space was never really “shared.” He was never there enough for it to be “shared,” and he knows it. He knows, dazed, confused, barely clinging to the concept of his identity, that he deserves it when she walks out of the hospital room.

Tatiana thinks of someone slumping a heavy jacket over her shoulders and guiding her down the sidewalk. She thinks of a bright, early fall day, with the crisp scent of apple cider in the air and cars driving up and down the lazy, small town street. The feeling of an arm around her shoulders is strong in her memory, along with the cheerful voice of someone very beloved as she talks about studying for her finals, about how she’s applying for a scholarship to a university in a big city, and they’re crossing the street, and- and the feeling of a hand against her back is strong in her memory too, sending her sprawling, and the memory of someone lying limp in the road is so painfully _strong_ that it freezes her blood.

What point is there, they wonder, in giving themselves away again? Are they still worth anything?

“I should go,” Tatiana says, and Zeke notes that her tone is a little more hushed than it was before. She still has that smile on her face, but the brightness is gone from it. “I have to go to work in the morning. I open shop, you know.”

“Oh, yes.” Zeke pockets his phone and nods, turning away from her back to the shelves of drinks. “Yes, I should be on my way as well. I’m working on a case, and I’ll have to be at work early.”

“You have a good night,” she says, and she almost calls him “Zeke,” but bites her tongue, nods a little, and turns on her heel. He repeats the same back to her, turns away as well, and they only take a few steps away before stopping.

There is just something that feels indescribably wrong about walking away.

Tatiana turns back to him first, but he does so as well, only a second later. Aware of how ridiculous she looks, saying goodbye only to turn right back around a second later, she moves towards him, assured by the fact that he is also making a move towards her. Awkwardly, they meet in the middle of the aisle, and she stares at their feet while he looks over at the colorful rows of drinks, alcoholic and not.

“Sorry,” they both say, and she bites back a grin while he coughs into a hand.

“This is just like when you came running back into my shop for my name a couple of months ago,” Tatiana recalls. “I- I was wondering if I could have your phone number.”

Zeke sighs inaudibly. Some tension floods out of his body, and he reaches into his pocket for his phone, once more awkwardly holding the beers as he fumbles with it. “Yes, I- I was wondering the same. I’m sorry, I know I should’ve asked for it before saying goodbye, but-”

“No, it’s fine,” she assures, and then lies, “I didn’t think about it until, like, three seconds ago. Whoops!”

He smiles, and Tatiana notes that it’s just a small crook of his lips, but that it is dazzling nonetheless. He tells a half-lie of his own, saying, “I actually meant to ask for it this morning, but you looked like you were so busy, and I didn’t want to slow you down. I must seem like I have terrible manners.”

“It’s fine,” she assures again. Tatiana slips the handles of her basket into the crook of her elbow, rummages around her pocket for her cellphone, and pulls it out. His phone is caseless, and she’s impressed at that, given how expensive it looks. He must be very certain in his ability to hold onto it. “Uh, let me- I’ll get yours, and I can text you?”

“Yes, of course.” Zeke pulls up his contacts and reads his number from the list, waits, and then says, “I’m not that good at, well, talking. Or texting. If I don’t respond immediately, I hope you won’t think I’m ignoring you or anything. I just like thinking about what to say before replying. Or I’m busy. I- My job demands a lot.”

“That’s fine, that’s totally fine.” She feels she is saying that a lot. She feels she’s saying a lot of things a lot, but pushes that anxiety away. She types his name into the contact, enters some more information, saves it, and then immediately sends a message in the form of a simple “hello!” His screen lights up as he gets it, and she sighs as she watches him save her contact. “I reply really fast, but I don’t expect other people to do it for me. I hope you don’t think I’m, like, crazed to talk or whatever.”

It’s his turn to say, “It’s fine,” and they both pocket their phones. They dither in front of one another for a moment, awkwardly searching for something else to say, but they only repeat their goodbyes. There is a much more content, satisfied air around them, and Zeke notes that the brightness is back in her smile. Tatiana notes that he looks much more relaxed.

* * *

Zeke pays for his drinks quickly while Tatiana finishes shopping, takes the bag, and hastily retreats to his car. He climbs in, shuts the door, and doesn’t bother with turning it on. He just sighs, grips the steering wheel, and rests his head against the edge as he breathes deeply. He feels tense, stressed, like he just ran a marathon, but also satisfied. He feels pleased with himself, knowing he just did a hard thing, and he feels relief most of all knowing that she doesn’t think he’s a creep, that she wanted to contact him as much as he did her.

It puts him in a good mood for the rest of the night. He gets home, goes up the elevator, and is greeted by Ephraim at the door. He doesn’t stay awake for long; he doesn’t feel the need to stay awake and avoid a long, long night alone with his thoughts, drowning in that anxiety that never lets up as he stares at the ceiling. He feels light and calm, and he puts both beers in the refrigerator for a rainy day.

* * *

Tatiana climbs back into the truck with a huff, slinging her groceries onto the floor before hoisting herself up. Valbar looks up from his phone as she gets in, smiling at her, and she says, “I saw that hot guy!” before he can say anything.

“Two stores in one day?” he asks. “What’re the chances?”

She shuts the door and buckles her seatbelt, staring blankly out the windshield. “I got his phone number!”

“Good for you!”

“He said he wanted mine this morning,” she keeps going, “and that he just thought I was busy, and- and- and-”

“Breathe, kiddo.” Valbar puts his keys back in the ignition and turns them, letting the truck rumble to life. “You look almost feverish.”

Tatiana breathes, holding her phone tight as Valbar pulls out of the parking lot and back onto the road. She’s smiling, and she cannot stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you've read my other fic "by the seashore" and recognized tatiana's gf. Press F.


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